Thursday, October 10, 2013

World Bank, Rooted in Bureaucracy, Proposes a Sweeping Reorganization – NYTimes.com






World Bank, Rooted in Bureaucracy, Proposes a Sweeping Reorganization – NYTimes.com



October 9, 2013by Leave a comment


Can the World Bank heal itself? This initiative is a big deal among the development crowd and there is no shortage of suggestions (and here).


Many development experts have applauded the changes, at least in theory. “The concept is terrific, as is the emphasis on the bank’s comparative advantage as being a knowledge institution,” said Nancy Birdsall, the president of the Center for Global Development, a Washington-based research organization.
But Dr. Kim acknowledged the challenges that might come with reforming the bank’s bureaucracy. He said that the response to his proposal had been “mixed,” with some employees welcoming the plan and others voicing concern that the bank might focus too much during the transition on internal change and not enough on enacting its development programs.




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World Bank, Rooted in Bureaucracy, Proposes a Sweeping Reorganization

Started by Butifldrm, Oct 06 2013 06:30 P


Posted 06 October 2013 - 06:30 PM
 
World Bank, Rooted in Bureaucracy, Proposes a Sweeping Reorganization By ANNIE LOWREY
 
Published: October 6, 2013
 
 
WASHINGTON — Jim Yong Kim, the genial American physician who took over as the president of the World Bank last year, recently conducted a survey of its 10,000 employees. The survey revealed a “culture of fear,” pervasive “fear of risk” and a “terrible” environment for collaboration at the huge development institution, which lends more than $30 billion a year and works in more than 100 countries.
 
 
The bank, which provides a range of services to developing countries, from infrastructure loans to health grants to budget advice, was in danger of becoming a series of regional banks rather than a world bank, Dr. Kim said in an interview at its headquarters, two blocks from the White House. Worse, he feared its internal culture and structural organization might hamper its progress toward its newly made goals of eradicating extreme poverty by 2030 and ensuring inclusive growth.
 
“We could become less than the sum of our parts,” Dr. Kim said.
 
With the survey concluded and the bank’s two headline goals named, Dr. Kim has planned a sweeping reorganization. He intends to present his plan at the bank’s annual meetings, conducted in concert with the International Monetary Fund at the end of this week.
 
The reorganization, the first in nearly two decades, is meant to encourage collaboration across the sprawling, Balkanized and in some cases demoralized bank, which is conducting more than a thousand projects around the globe.
 
Right now, the bank’s operations are organized largely fund by fund, country by country and region by region. “When we asked technical people how much time they spent supporting other regions, the answer was less than 1 percent,” Dr. Kim said.
 
He also said there were capital cities where two arms of the broader World Bank group had been working in different offices and barely had any contact. “There really was a sense that these two institutions worked separately,” he said.
 
The proposal would organize the bank around 14 “global practices,” cutting across the bank’s different projects and funds. Those practices would include agriculture, education, energy and extractives, health and nutrition, and trade and competitiveness.
 
Many development experts have applauded the changes, at least in theory. “The concept is terrific, as is the emphasis on the bank’s comparative advantage as being a knowledge institution,” said Nancy Birdsall, the president of the Center for Global Development, a Washington-based research organization.
 
But Dr. Kim acknowledged the challenges that might come with reforming the bank’s bureaucracy. He said that the response to his proposal had been “mixed,” with some employees welcoming the plan and others voicing concern that the bank might focus too much during the transition on internal change and not enough on enacting its development programs.
 
Dr. Kim’s plan would change the pathways of power within the bank. The reshuffling process has already started. The Indonesian economist Sri Mulyani Indrawati has become the bank’s chief operating officer, and the anticorruption expert Sanjay Pradhan has become vice president for “change, knowledge and learning,” in charge of carrying out the restructuring.
 
A number of other high-level employees with long tenures at the bank have departed, and Dr. Kim said he would look outside the organization for the right “practices” directors where necessary. Bank employees are expecting layoffs.
 
“It’s a bureaucracy, and to see whether the restructuring works, you’re going to have to see how the money and approval process changes,” said an American worker at the bank, who spoke on the condition that she not be named to discuss her employer candidly. “A lot of people aren’t going to be happy about it.”
 
The World Bank, which is financed by its 188 member countries, spends more every year than any other development institution, but its dominance has waned over the last 20 years. Private investment has become more important to poor countries’ development, with traditional lending- and grant-based aid becoming relatively less so. There is also more competition among aid groups, including from giant ones like the Gates Foundation.
 
Moreover, three-quarters of the world’s very poor now live in fast-growing middle-income countries like China and India that are wielding more and more global influence themselves. Five of those countries, the so-called BRICS — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — have started work on their own development bank.
 
The reorganization, Dr. Kim said, is aimed at making the bank more efficient and quicker on the ground — a more effective engine of change that is more responsive to countries’ needs in real time. He said the idea was to be a “solutions bank,” he said, offering lending or grants, consulting and technical expertise. (One of his predecessors as president, James Wolfensohn, made his goal turning the institution into a “knowledge bank” back in the 1990s.)
 
The reorganized bank would focus more on working in partnership with the private sector, Dr. Kim said. It would also be more tolerant of higher-risk, higher-reward and more controversial ventures. “If you have a spectacular failure, the only thing that I would be disappointed about is if we didn’t ensure we learned from that failure,’ ” Dr. Kim said.
 
But development experts who have worked for the bank noted that changing such a deeply entrenched bureaucracy might prove difficult — and translating organizational change into improved performance even more so.
 
Ms. Birdsall also said that the bank might need to do more to adapt to the world’s development needs as they change, for instance devoting money and expertise to problems like drug and human trafficking that occur outside of a single-country context. “The new development challenges are often global in nature, shared by people in the United States and Japan and so on,” she said. “Climate is the classic example.”
 
http://www.nytimes.c...?ref=world&_r=0


Read more: http://dinarvets.com/forums/index.php?/topic/162754-world-bank-rooted-in-bureaucracy-proposes-a-sweeping-reorganization/#ixzz2hSQN7J6j



PrittyKitty  Senior Member
Posted 06 October 2013 - 07:00 PM
Thank you for bringing this to site: seems like so many changes are starting to take place (everywhere) AND I'm not sure which way it's all headed, for the good or for the bad. Go RV :peace:


Dinar Buddy

Posted 06 October 2013 - 07:04 PM
I like this post... Pressure is go.


Read more: http://dinarvets.com/forums/index.php?/topic/162754-world-bank-rooted-in-bureaucracy-proposes-a-sweeping-reorganization/#ixzz2hSRyxVeL


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World Bank Chronology

  1. Oct. 8, 2013
    World Bank lowers its growth forecast for large parts of eastern Asia; growth in the region that includes China, Thailand and the Philippines will be 7.1 percent in 2013 and 7.2 percent in 2014, according to the bank’s new projections, from 7.8 percent and 7.6 percent.MORE »
  2. Oct. 7, 2013
    World Bank president Jim Yong Kim has sweeping plan to sort sprawling bank’s operations by the kinds of projects involved, like agriculture or energy, rather than by region; reorganization, first in nearly two decades, is meant to encourage collaboration.MORE »
  3. Sep. 16, 2013
    World Bank president, Jim Yong Kim, says China should hit its gross domestic product growth target of 7.5 percent this year; warns rising interest rates in emerging markets, in response to reports that the United States is preparing to scale back its buying of government bonds, show that significant risk remains.MORE »


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The World Bank’s Diminishing Role in Africa
Ideally, the World Bank should work toward the goal of putting itself out of a job in Africa.
July 12, 2013, Friday
 
 
 
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Central bankers and finance ministers gathering in Washington for meetings of the World Bank and I.M.F. point to the global implications of the government shutdown and a possible default.
October 11, 2013, Friday


    World Bank Lowers East Asia Growth Forecasts

    World Bank Lowers East Asia Growth Forecasts
    Growth in the region that includes China, Thailand and the Philippines will be 7.1 percent this year and 7.2 percent next year, according to the bank’s new projections.
    October 8, 2013, Tuesday
     
     
     
    Zoellick to Join Goldman as International Adviser
    The former president of the World Bank worked as Goldman’s vice chairman, international and a managing director from 2006 to 2007.
    October 07, 2013, Monday


      World Bank, Rooted in Bureaucracy, Proposes a Sweeping Reorganization

      World Bank, Rooted in Bureaucracy, Proposes a Sweeping Reorganization
      The new leader has a plan to sort the sprawling bank’s operations by the kinds of projects involved, like agriculture or energy, rather than by region.
      October 7, 2013, Monday
      MORE ON WORLD BANK AND: World Bank, Kim, Jim Yong


        World Bank Says China Will Reach G.D.P. Target for Year
        But the president of the World Bank warned that rising interest rates in emerging markets in response to reports that the United States is preparing to scale back its buying of bonds show that risk remains.
        September 16, 2013, Monday
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         

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