Reforming World Bank’s Culture

The conflicts among external interests and demands on the Bank crippled the reform strategy during the Compact period.  It seems like the infamous reorganization (in 1987), the reform architects (in 1997) overemphasized changes in formal material structures and systems and failed to personify (predict) the difficulty of challenging vested interests, ideologies, and operational norms.  The bank needs to find a better balance between the ‘hardware’ of change (as in strategy, structure, process, systems) and the ’software’ (as in culture and behavior) – recapitulated the Compact assessment report.  Culture is predominantly a stabilizing force in bureaucracies, creating shared norms and expectations that enable staff to work even on uncertainty conditions around.  Conclusively, culture is not (supposedly) to change quickly and to seek to fundamentally uproot and transform it as a part of short-term strategic reform initiative which is bound dutifully to disappoint.

To reform the Bank’s intellectual culture has its own traditional unique challenges.  ” Development is a diverse field speaking to virtually and realistically every aspect of human endeavor, and the core elements of this diversity should be revealed (reflected) in the training of the Bank’s research staff and content of its research agenda. ”  In order to bring up fresh ideas and shake the old ways of thinking, the Compact specified human resources targets – including a remarkable quantitative shift in the Bank’s staff skills towards priority areas.  Hindrances like the publicly available data do not provide information on the educational backgrounds, qualifications or even – placement of individuals hired into the priority sectors.  As an achievement, the Bank’s main research department wrote a short essay on the ” disciplinary monopoly” of economists, inside the bank.  Therefore, assembling majority of economists within the Bank has perceptions of intellectual hegemony to be  remaining intact.