This chapter examines why the Bank has not adopted a human rights policy despite a number of factors that would suggest otherwise, including internal and external pressure as well as the Bank’s own pro-human rights rhetoric. The answer to this puzzle lies in the Bank’s organizational...

The chapter first describes the World Bank’s engagement with ethics and human rights (EHR) since the 1990s. I find that with regard to both issues, the Bank was somewhat active early in this century, when external pressure from critics and the role of President Wolfensohn (1995-2005) played an...

The aim of this chapter is to trace the Bank’s changing policies in the field of poverty reduction. Doing so, I show that the organization’s policy reforms can be interpreted as an attempt to avoid responsibility for policy failure. Given the persistence of poverty over the past decades, the...

Most of world trade is organized through global value chains (GVCs). The World Bank’s Trading for Development in the Age of Global Value Chains claims that GVCs boost incomes, create better jobs and reduce poverty. It explains the developmental benefits of GVCs from a comparative advantage...

Anti-corruption norms and measures are rarely examined in developing country contexts, despite that these contexts often suffer of corruption and political turmoil. This chapter explores how the World Bank in tandem with Transparency International developed the Corruption Perception Index (CPI)...

Following the publication of the WDR 2008 on ‘Agriculture for Development’, the World Bank has re-assumed a leadership role in the global governance of agriculture and rural development. This re-engagement has surprised many observers, since agriculture had become increasingly sidelined...

This chapter provides a brief summary of the World Bank’s approaches to gender and development, and an overview of how the Bank has assessed its recent progress on gender (section 1). It proceeds to analyze the Bank’s current direction of travel on gender from a critical perspective. I focus...

The World Bank is widely regarded as one of two ‘global ministries of health’ alongside the WHO. As such, it wields important normative as well as sizable financial power. The World Bank’s approach to health has changed over time, shifting from a focus on primary care to health financing...

Partnerships - conceived as co-governance arrangements between diverse public and private actors - have become part of the lexicon of global governance among international organizations. This chapter examines environmental partnerships at the World Bank and traces their genesis alongside the...

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund feature among the most powerful contemporary international organizations. In light of their status, they have been extensively studied. Yet I claim in this chapter that while scholarly insights into the two organizations as separate entities are...