This article provides background on the establishment of the World Bank Inspection Panel and discusses its significance. It argues that the Panel is an important international legal development for three reasons. First, it is the first forum in which private actors can hold an international...

There is a consensus in the international community that rural electrification and, in particular, the productive use of electricity contributes to poverty alleviation. At the same time, efforts to evaluate the impacts of development projects have increased substantially. This paper provides a...

In recent years, the international community has expanded efforts in programme evaluation to improve the accountability of development projects. This paper presents approaches to implementing state-of-the-art evaluations in rural electrification projects, taking into account specific challenges...

The World Bank Inspection Panel is committed to preventing intimidation or reprisals of any kind against anyone who submits or supports a complaint presented to it. The Panel believes that any form of reprisal threatens the integrity of the World Bank's accountability process and that a...

The World Bank Inspection Panel is an independent complaints mechanism for people who believe they have been or will be adversely affected by the World Bank not complying with its operational environmental and social safeguard policies in projects that it funds. The Panel's process seeks redress...

Understanding the efficacy of development projects requires not only a plausible counter factual, but an appropriate match between the shape of impact trajectory over time and the deployment of a corresponding array of research tools capable of empirically discerning such a trajectory. At...