World Bank Accountability : In Theory and in Practice.

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Cover; Title page; Acknowledgements; Table of Contents; Table of figures; Introduction; 1 Towards a Comprehensive Shared Understanding on World Bank Accountability -- in Theory and Practice; 1.1 Aim and central arguments; 1.2 Scope and approach; 1.2.1 Inspection Panel practice as a window onto World Bank development lending operations; 1.3 How this book is organized; 2 Conceptual Models Facilitating Interdisciplinary Inquiry and Discourse; 2.1 World Bank development-lending operations as situated in the transnational development context.

2.2 World Bank accountability conceived as an interdisciplinary, multidimensional and interdependent concept2.3 Interactional normative processes, embedded in a resilient and adaptable community of interest; Part I Conceptualizing World Bank Accountability; 3 'To Whom' Should the World Bank be Accountable? 'Power Wielders'and 'Accountability Holders'; 3.1 Prominent actors involved in World Bank development-lending operations; 3.1.1 World Bank governance structure, management and staff; 3.1.2 World Bank clients -- borrowers, guarantors, project sponsors andproject implementing agencies.

3.1.3 Co-financiers and their citizen-driven IAMs3.1.4 Civil society organizations ('local' and 'international' NGOs); 3.1.5 Project-affected people (beneficiaries, adversely affected people and'Inspection Panel Requesters'); 3.2 World Bank accountability to internal and external accountabilityholders; 3.2.1 Internal accountability holders: World Bank member states and governancestructure; 3.2.2 External constituent groups: project-affected people, civil society andbroader public interest; 3.2.3 Constituency groups competing for primacy; 4 What Should the World Bank be Accountable 'For'?

4.1 Four stages of development assistance4.1.1 Development lending instruments; 4.1.2 The development project cycle; 4.2 Multiple interests, demands and expectations, resulting in complementaryand competing institutional aims; 4.2.1 Strategic repositioning and institutional reforms; 4.2.2 Achieving 'institutional equilibrium': reconciling and prioritizingcompeting institutional aims; 4.3 World Bank and Borrower obligations; 4.3.1 The formal division between Bank and Borrower obligations; 4.3.2 Analysing a complex delineation; 5 Assessing Accountability: Compliance with Normative Frameworks.

5.1 The credit/loan agreement and the World Bank's operational policyframework5.1.1 The 'legal nature' of the operational policy framework; 5.2 National law (the Borrower's constitutional system); 5.3 International law: Borrower and World Bank obligations; 5.3.1 International legal obligations of borrower states; 5.3.2 International legal obligations of the World Bank; 5.4 International industry and/or professional standards and 'best practice'; 6 Assessing Accountability: Accountability Mechanisms and Competing Approaches to Compliance; 6.1 Categorizing internal accountability mechanisms.

6.2 Internal accountability mechanisms involved in the normative assessment of World Bank activities.

International financial institutions such as the World Bank should be accountable - but to whom and for what? What role is there for legal and social normativity to influence, prescribe and assess behaviour and, ultimately, realize specific outcomes? How do we answer such questions in theory and how do we implement the answers to such questions in practice? Focusing on the World Bank's development-lending operations, this book considers these matters - specifically through the perspectives offered by the Bank's citizen-driven accountability mechanism: the Inspection Panel. The book analyzes various interests, demands, expectations and conceptions surrounding the multidimensional notion of 'accountability' - thereby demonstrating why, in a diverse and dynamic world, accountability questions remain both relevant and challenging to answer conclusively. With its emphasis on theory and practice, this book is aimed both at researchers studying and practitioners working in transnational regulatory governance contexts involving multiple actors, politico-legal systems and forms of normativity. With its compendium of challenges characterizing Bank-financed development projects, this book can also introduce students of various disciplines to the operations of multilateral development banks.

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