Under President Ajay Banga, the World Bank Group launched a corporate scorecard and a year later created an outcomes department — a commitment to ensure that its roughly $90 billion in annual disbursements translate into meaningful impact.
Yet even well-intentioned bureaucracies often drift into “isomorphic mimicry,” in the words of Lant Pritchett et al: Adopting the language of reform without the underlying behavioral and institutional shifts.
As one of the most influential players in international development, how the World Bank fares will reverberate widely. Two years since the scorecard launched, are these reforms translating into substantive changes?
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About the authors
Avnish Gungadurdoss
Avnish Gungadurdoss is the co-founder of Instiglio, a global organization partnering with public institutions to exponentially improve social and climate outcomes, and which recently launched the Government Empowerment Network. Since 2012, Instiglio has worked with more than 200 organizations, helping ensure better outcomes for roughly 98 million people and influencing over $1 billion in public spending.
Thomas O’Brien
Thomas O’Brien is a professional economist with over three decades of front-line experience. As a director with the World Bank, he supervised a $75 billion portfolio across Africa. At KPMG, he led major regeneration programs, and as an economic adviser at the U.K. Treasury, he conducted national policy analysis. He is the vice chair of the Liverpool Innovation Zones Program and honorary professorial fellow at the University of Manchester.
