Accountability Mechanisms
The World Bank Inspection Panel
The World Bank Inspection Panel was created in 1993 as part of an effort to bring greater public accountability to World Bank lending. A series of events led to an international campaign to improve accountability at the Bank. As a result of a broad grassroots and international campaign against the Sardar Sarovar dam on the Narmada River in India, the Bank commissioned an independent review of its role in the project. This independent review, which became known as the Morse Commission, published its findings in 1992. The Morse Commission report documented clear violations of Bank policies and the devastating human and environmental consequences of those policy violations.
The Morse Commission's findings that the Bank largely disregarded its social and environmental policies and tolerated its borrowers' violation of the policies were soon confirmed more generally by an internal review of Bank projects. The Narmada policy violations were not an aberration, but a systemic part of the Bank's culture. The devastating internal report, authored by Bank Vice President Willi Wapenhans, criticized the Bank's pervasive "culture of approval," in which the incentive structure encouraged staff to move large amounts of money quickly without adequate attention to the social and environmental implications of projects.
In practice, the social and environmental policies that had been developed during the late 1980s and early 1990s were in many cases routinely ignored by Bank staff. Prior to the creation of the Inspection Panel, project-affected people had no real avenue of redress and no way of holding the Bank accountable for these policy violations. This lack of accountability was starkly highlighted in the findings of the Morse Commission's report.
Spurred on by the international NGO reform campaign and the emerging global consensus for sustainable development, member country governments called on the Bank to develop a transparent system of accountability to ensure that public funds were spent more consistently with the Bank's mandate of sustainable development and poverty alleviation. In 1993, the Board of Directors passed an improved policy on information disclosure and created the Inspection Panel.
The Inspection Panel provides an innovative and independent forum for those people most directly affected by a World Bank project to raise their concerns about problems in Bank projects. Two or more local people can bring a claim to the Inspection Panel asking for an independent analysis of the Bank's role in a project. The claim must allege that acts or omissions on the part of the Bank have caused or could potentially cause them harm and that they believe the Bank has violated its policies and procedures. The Panel is to be used as an avenue of last resort when the staff or management of the Bank have been unresponsive to the concerns of the affected people.
The Panel is composed of three members nominated by the President of the Bank and approved by the Board of Executive Directors. The members of the Panel serve for five-year terms. The Chairperson, selected by the Panel members, works full-time and the two other members are called upon as needed. The Panel is financed by the Bank. To increase the independence of Panel staff from the Bank, Panel members cannot have worked for the World Bank for at least two years prior to serving on the Panel. They also cannot work again for the Bank after serving on the Panel. In addition, the Panel has its own secretariat. This institutional separation allows the Panel to ensure the confidentiality of important information, such as the identity of anonymous claimants. Because it has a permanent office and staff, the Panel is able to respond to requests for information and advice from interested parties.
Two documents -- Bank Resolution 93-10 and the Inspection Panel Operating Procedures -- set forth the basic procedures for the Panel. They define the composition of the Panel, the criteria for eligibility, the necessary components of a claim, and provide guidance for how the process should work. The Resolution was approved by the Board of Executive Directors; the Procedures were written by the original Panel.
Thirty-six cases have been brought to the Inspection Panel since it opened in 1994.
For more information on the Inspection Panel and how to file a claim, please see A Citizen's Guide to the Inspection Panel and The Strategic Guide to the Inspection Panel.
Other Mechanisms
Check back for information about additional accountability mechanisms. Meanwhile, see the following websites:
- Asian Development Bank
- Inter-American Development Bank
- European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
- Compliance Advisor Ombudsman
