The International Organizations Clinic at NYU School of Law has published a report: “The Changing Role of the World Bank Inspection Panel: Responding to Contemporary Challenges at the World Bank”. The World Bank Inspection Panel—an independent mechanism that accepts third party complaints against the World Bank—faces new challenges as a result of recent institutional reforms at the World Bank. In its report, the International Organizations Clinic sets forth recommendations for the Inspection Panel to respond to the new challenges while still “preserving the principle of citizen-driven accountability and maintaining its role as a bottom- up, citizen-driven accountability mechanism.”

In recent years, the World Bank implemented reforms in order to make internal operational policies “less prescriptive and more amenable to strengthening the existing institutional and administrative systems… in borrower countries,” according to the report. However, implementing these changes has had a direct effect on the Inspection Panel and its ability to respond to complaints from people who claim to be negatively affected by the World Bank’s programs.

The report employs a systematic review of World Bank “policy and operational documents, external commentary, recent development literature and interviews with [Inspection] Panel Secretariat staff” to analyze the Inspection Panel’s role and determine how it has been, and will be, effected by the reforms.

Download the full report here.