Description
Book SynopsisThe aim of this book is to look at the World Bank as an organization and to ask whether twenty years of reforms have improved its efficiency and effectiveness in delivering economic assistance.
Trade ReviewReviews of the hardback: 'A wonderfully frank, clearheaded, well-researched opus and a great read for organization geeks, foreign aid friends and critics, and World Bank insiders. Bound to annoy and provoke, and maybe to inspire.' Nancy Birdsall, Center for Global Development, Washington DC
'Reorganizations at the World Bank might seem like a narcoleptic subject. But David Phillips brings alive the tortuous history of the Bank and makes us realize that it matters for one oft-overlooked constituency - the world's poor.' William Easterly, New York University
'Why is it that every newly appointed President of the World Bank feels the urge to launch a massive re-organization knowing that all previous attempts to do so ended up creating more problems than those they solved? David Phillips' book offers a fascinating overview of the forces that drive the organizational learning disability that for decades has weakened this important institution.' Moisés Naím, Foreign Policy Magazine
'This book shows how reform often comes out of episodic initiatives and how new solutions often consist simply in reversing what was done earlier.' Michele Alacevich, Harvard University
Table of ContentsPart I. Origins and Evolution: 1. What does the World Bank do and how does it do it?; 2. The emerging critique; Part II. The Search for Effectiveness: 3. Fifty years of bank reforms; 4. The 1990s - reengineering the organization; 5. Changing culture and changing people; 6. Reforming the bank's assistance product; 7. Changing the quality of development assistance; 8. Financing the reorganization; 9. Why did the reforms fail?; Part III. Towards Real Reform: The Governance Agenda: 10. The governors and the directors; 11. The leadership; 12. Looking back and looking forward: what is to be done?
