World Bank
- Score:
- 65.4
- Position:
- 4 / 9
Overview
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries. It consists of the International Development Association (IDA) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). IDA provides concessional or interest-free loans and grants to governments of the poorest countries, while IBRD lends to governments of middle-income and creditworthy low-income countries. It was established in 1944, and was among the first multilateral development banks to become an IATI member in 2008.
Analysis
The World Bank came fourth in the sovereign assessment with a score of 65.4 out of 100. It is a publisher to the IATI Standard and has a free, bulk export available for its investment database. The World Bank performed well in the Impact Management component coming joint second, but came fourth and fifth in the other three components. The World Bank disclosed for the majority of project-level indicators for the index. However, it lost points for a number of indicators because it did not disclose consistently enough across the sample.
World Bank came fourth in the Core Information component with a score of 20.69 out of 30. It scored in sixteen of the seventeen indicators of the assessment. World Bank did not score for the loan agreement/contract indicator as it did not publish them consistently enough. It scored 100% for ten of the indicators because it publishes to IATI and provides a bulk download file. However, it dropped points for other indicators as not all data points were disclosed in the bulk download file.
World Bank came joint second in the Impact Management component with 25.33 out of 30. It scored for all five indicators of the component, getting 100% for the sector/country strategies, evaluation, and activity indicators/metrics indicators. On the project level, it was one of three sovereign DFIs to score for all questions in the indicators.
World Bank came joint fifth in the ESG and Accountability to Communities component with 16.33 out of 30. It performed relatively well for project-level disclosure as it was one of two sovereign DFIs to get 100% for the summary of E&S risks indicator. It was the only DFI to score for the assurance of project-level grievance mechanism (PGM) community disclosure indicator. However, it lost points for the E&S project plans/assessments indicator as it did not consistently publish all E&S documents that were produced, including the minimum required for higher risk projects. World Bank failed certain organisation-level questions that many other sovereign DFIs passed, including early global disclosure policy, an explanation of project risk categorisation, and an investment exemption list.
World Bank came fourth in the Financial Information component with a score of 3 out of 10. World Bank scored for the financial reports/statements and co-financing indicators but not for the currency of investment and instrument-specific disclosure indicators.
Recommendations
- World Bank should disclose more data points in its bulk download file that it already publishes elsewhere, including disbursement data, funding source, and last update date.
- It should publish client contact details and consistently publish the sub-national location to the IATI Standard, which are already disclosed on its data portal.
- It should consistently disclose loan agreements/contracts for its investments.
- World Bank should publish the date of activity disclosure and consistently publish the signature date.
- World Bank should review its access to information policy according to Publish What You Fund’s DFI Transparency Tool and current best practice, including detailing its procedure for early disclosure of investments.
- For Impact Management it should disclose the impact standards/initiatives it is aligned to and its approach to determining impact attribution.
- For ESG and Accountability to Communities it should disclose an explanation of project E&S risk categorisation and a list of investment exemptions.
- World Bank should publish E&S documents for all investments, including the minimum documentation required for higher risk projects.
- It should create a policy guiding the disclosure of the presence of the independent accountability mechanism (IAM) at community level.
- It should consistently provide assurance of community disclosure for investments when disclosure is required.
- World Bank should also consistently disclose further Financial Information, including the currency of investment, interest rate, and loan tenor.