Accountability within the World Bank Complex: Why Agent Strategies Matter

• In Event: Evolution of International Regime Complexes: Adaptation and Maladaptation

Abstract

Over the past three decades, the accountability system within the World Bank evolved into a complex ecosystem composed of the Inspection Panel, the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman, the Grievance Redress Service, and the Independent Evaluation Group. The creation of the World Bank Accountability Mechanism in 2020 to host the existing Inspection Panel and the newly created Dispute Resolution Service introduced a new layer of complexity into the Bank’s accountability system. To explain this complex accountability system, this paper builds on delegation and regime complexity scholarship. Thereby, it investigates how the struggle between the principals (member states represented at the Board of Executive Directors) and their agent (the World Bank) led to this multi-layered accountability regime complex. This paper argues that the agent used three strategies to circumvent principal control: reinterpretation of principal mandates; expansion of permeability to non-principal third parties; and buffering by creating barriers to principal monitoring. To evaluate this argument, this paper examines the evolution of the multilayered accountability system inside the World Bank Group from 1993 on with the creation of the Inspection Panel through 2020 with the enactment of the World Bank Accountability Mechanism.

Author

• Eugenia M. da Conceicao-Heldt, Technical University Munich