The World Bank and non-governmental organizations

About this book

Under fire from environmental and social critics, the World Bank has made its growing contact with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) a major theme in its self-justification. Nelson surveys the Bank's engagement with NGOs' and shows that NGO involvement in Bank-funded projects usually means accepting project plans and economic strategies conceived by a narrow circle of government and Bank planners. While contact with community groups and private agencies has grown, key organizational traits of the Bank, political interests of its member countries, and limitations in most NGOs commitment and resources, limit the prospect for fundamental change. Internal reforms have opened the Bank's operations somewhat, but the core of its lending operations, its governing myth of apolitical development, and its insular and hierarchical organizational culture, remain firmly in place. The Bank has adapted to past demands and reforms with remarkable stability, and without monumental efforts from its would-be reformers and decisive leadership from its new president, it is on course to do the same through the 1990s.