The Struggle for Accountability: The World Bank, NGOs, and Grassroots Movements

by Jonathan A. Fox, L. David Brown

Overview

After a history of funding environmentally costly megaprojects, the World Bank now claims that it is trying to become a leading force for sustainable development. For more than a decade, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and grassroots movements have formed transnational coalitions to reform the World Bank and the governments that it funds. The Struggle for Accountability assesses the efforts of these groups to make the World Bank more publicly accountable. The book is organized into four parts. Part I describes the NGOs and grassroots movements that are the book's central focus. Part II presents case studies of four projects that provoked the emergence of transnational advocacy coalitions: Indonesia's Kedung Ombo dam, the Mt. Apo geothermal plant in the Philippines, Brazil's Planaforo Amazon development project, and the remarkable campaign of Ecuador's indigenous people to influence national economic policy that led to their participation in the design of a development loan. Part III looks at the origins and politics of reform in four areas of broader World Bank policy: the rights of indigenous peoples, involuntary resettlement, water resources, and the World Bank's institutional reforms that are supposed to encourage public accountability. In the last section, the editors discuss issues of accountability within transnational coalitions and assess the impact of advocacy campaigns on World Bank projects and policies.

Contributors
L. David Brown, Jane G. Covey, Jonathan A. Fox, Andrew Gray, Margaret E. Keck, Deborah Moore, Antoinette Royo, Augustinus Rumansara, Leonard Sklar, Kay Treakle, Lori Udall, David A. Wirth.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262561174
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	08/19/1998
Series:	Global Environmental Accord: Strategies for Sustainability and Institutional Innovation
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	548
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.50(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jonathan A. Fox is Professor in the Latin American and Latino Studies Department atthe University of California, Santa Cruz.

Table of Contents

Series Foreword
Preface and Acknowledgments
Contributors
1 Introduction
Jonathan A. FoX and L. David Brown
I Actors
2 Partnership Advocacy in World Bank Environmental
Reform
David A. Wirth
3 Critical Cooperation? Influencing the World Bank
through Policy Dialogue and Operational Cooperation
Jane G. Covey
II Bank Projects
4 Indonesia: The Struggle of the People of Kedung
Ombo
Augustinus Rumansara
5 The Philippines: Against the Peoples' Wishes: The
Mt. Apo Story
Antoinette G. Royo
6 Planafloro in Rondônia: The Limits of
Leverage
Margaret E. Keck
7 Ecuador: Structural Adjustment and Indigenous and
Environmentalist Resistance
Kay Treakle
III Bank Policies
8 Development PolicyDevelopment Protest: The World
Bank, Indigenous Peoples, and NGOs
Andrew Gray
9 When Does Reform Policy Influence Practice? Lessons
from the Bankwide Resettlement Review
Jonathan A. FoX
10 Reforming the World Bank's Lending for Water: The
Process and Outcome of Developing a Water Resources Management
Policy
Deborah Moore and Leonard Sklar
11 The World Bank and Public Accountability: Has
Anything Changed?
Lori Udall
IV Conclusions
12 Accountability within Transnational Coalitions
L. David Brown and Jonathan FoX
13 Assessing the Impact of NGO Advocacy Compaigns on
World Bank Projects and Policies
Jonathan A. FoX and L. David Brown
IndeX

What People are Saying About This

Peter Evans

This is a timely, high quality volume that integrates a very carefully reasoned intervention in important policy controversies that with a sophisticated appreciation of connections to ongoing theoretical debates in the social sciences.

While explaining how the Bank's environmental policies have responded to external lobbying groups, it simultaneously helps illuminate questions of organizational learning, transnational civil society, and the institutional character of NGOs.

Rajeesh Tandon

International coalitions and networks of civil society are becoming increasingly relevant in today's global order. This study of advocacy mechanisms highlights the significance and processes of enduring Southern constituency rootedness and accountability.

Peter M. Haas

This book offers a sound and thorough study of NGO campaigns around the world and provides a critical appraisal of the greening and increased transparency of the World Bank. The authors deliver one of the few careful and systematic evaluations on this highly emotional and polemical topic.

Endorsement

The search for accountability in international institutions is a keytopic in today's global agenda. This work provides a variety ofuseful and important examples of efforts to increase transparency andaccountability in World Bank operations.—Dr. Alvaro Umaña, Chairman, World Bank Inspection Panel

From the Publisher

This book offers a sound and thorough study of NGO campaigns around the world and provides a critical appraisal of the greening and increased transparency of the World Bank. The authors deliver one of the few careful and systematic evaluations on this highly emotional and polemical topic.—Peter M. Haas, Professor of Political Science, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

This book provides a fascinating and complex analysis of the potential and pitfalls of the process of engagement between civil society, the World Bank, and governments during the last two decades. It brings together a range of excellent case studies, based on firsthand experience and primary research, of the worldwide struggle to make the World Bank's lending policies more answerable to the communities that the policies are supposed to serve.—Gita Sen, Professor of Economics and Social Sciences, Indiana Institute of Management, Bangalore & Research Coordinator, DAWN (Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era)

International coalitions and networks of civil society are becoming increasingly relevant in today's global order. This study of advocacy mechanisms highlights the significance and processes of enduring Southern constituency rootedness and accountability.—Rajeesh Tandon, Executive Director, Society for Participatory Research in Asia and Chairperson, CIVICUS

Is the World Bank an immutable monolith or a more responsive institutional partner capable of sincere dialogue with its diverse stakeholders and critics? The Struggle for Accountability provides the first comprehensive evaluation of the struggles, setbacks, and limited victories of World Bank officials and their activist critics. Fox and Brown provide a valuable window into a complex set of relationships that has real relevance to today's efforts to link local realities to global policy reform.—Raymond C. Offenheiser, President, Oxfam America

This is a timely, high quality volume that integrates a very carefully reasoned intervention in important policy controversies that with a sophisticated appreciation of connections to ongoing theoretical debates in the social sciences. While explaining how the Bank's environmental policies have responded to external lobbying groups, it simultaneously helps illuminate questions of organizational learning, transnational civil society, and the institutional character of NGOs.—Peter Evans, Chancellor's Professor of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley

The search for accountability in international institutions is a keytopic in today's global agenda. This work provides a variety ofuseful and important examples of efforts to increase transparency andaccountability in World Bank operations.—Dr. Alvaro Umaña, Chairman, World Bank Inspection Panel

Raymond C. Offenheiser

Is the World Bank an immutable monolith or a more responsive institutional partner capable of sincere dialogue with its diverse stakeholders and critics? The Struggle for Accountability provides the first comprehensive evaluation of the struggles, setbacks, and limited victories of World Bank officials and their activist critics. Fox and Brown provide a valuable window into a complex set of relationships that has real relevance to today's efforts to link local realities to global policy reform.

Dr. Alvaro Umaña

The search for accountability in international institutions is a keytopic in today's global agenda. This work provides a variety ofuseful and important examples of efforts to increase transparency andaccountability in World Bank operations.

Gita Sen

This book provides a fascinating and complex analysis of the potential and pitfalls of the process of engagement between civil society, the World Bank, and governments during the last two decades. It brings together a range of excellent case studies, based on firsthand experience and primary research, of the worldwide struggle to make the World Bank's lending policies more answerable to the communities that the policies are supposed to serve.