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World Bank

AID TRANSPARENCY ANALYSIS

The World Bank Group comprises five institutions: the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International Development Association (IDA), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). The “World Bank” refers to IDA and IBRD.

The 2013 Index assesses the transparency of two World Bank Group institutions: IDA and IFC. The World Bank signed IATI in 2008 and started publishing information in the IATI format for IDA and IBRD in April 2011. Although the IFC coordinates its activities with other World Bank Group institutions, it is legally and financially independent and is therefore not covered by the World Bank’s commitment to IATI.

The World Bank Group has been a leading advocate for open development, open finances and knowledge sharing. World Bank Group Finances brings together financial data from all five institutions, providing raw open data for analysis and visualisation. As a member of the IATI steering committee, the World Bank is represented by its Operation Policy and Country Services (OPCS) network unit, which supports the development of World Bank policy and strategy and leads on its corporate priorities. One of the World Bank’s key priorities is open development – the provision of free, accessible tools to explore the Bank’s open data and research and knowledge databases. Several open development workstreams operate under the World Bank Institute (WBI), which supports the World Bank’s operational work, especially regarding access to information and technology. The WBI provides the secretariat for the Open Aid Partnership, an initiative aiming to visualise the geography of aid – by combining sub-national datasets including aid, poverty and human development – and increase the data collection and publication capacity of partner countries.

The state of transparency across the World Bank Group is somewhat mixed (though the Index only assess two of the five institutions). IDA performs well, as in previous years, coming 5th out of 67, at the top of the good category. The IFC ranks 30th out of 67, placing it in the poor category.

RECOMMENDATIONS

  • The World Bank should continue to champion aid transparency and IATI specifically. The information published by World Bank Group Finances should be integrated into the World Bank Group’s IATI data.
  • The World Bank Group should ensure that its entire development portfolio is published to IATI. It should work with IATI to ensure that the activities of IFC and MIGA are accurately represented in future IATI publication.

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