The World Bank provides one of the world’s largest sources of international development funding, in 2019 committing US$62.3bn in loans, grants, equity investments, and guarantees to governments and private businesses.
The institution’s responsibilities to partner governments are well defined. Yet its duty to consider the perspectives and experiences of those affected by its projects, as well as of civil society more broadly, remains ambiguous. Long-standing concerns about whether and how the World Bank demonstrates accountability to citizens have become amplified as it expands involvement in fragile, conflict-, and violence-affected settings.