Blogging for Transparency & Good Governance: on IFIs

Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) were also involved during the recent Spring Meetings of the IMF/World Bank, and some blogged. Notably among blogging NGOs there was IFIwatchnet, which monitors International Financial Institutions (IFIs), and with their own blog. Other NGOs that participated and which play an important role on holding IFIs accountable (even if they do not have a blog yet, but perhaps soon?) include the Bank Information Center (BIC), advocating protection of rights, transparency, and accountability in the governance and operations of IFIs; the IMF/World Bank watchdog NGO Bretton Woods Project; as well as the Heinrich Böll Foundation, supporting democracy, civil society and equality; the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, promoting social democracy; the anticorruption NGO Transparency International (TI); the European Network on Debt and Development (EURODAD), advocating accountability on Debt & Development; and the International Financial and Trade Institutions (IFTI) Watch.

Then there are other NGOs whose primary role is not to be so much a watchdog of IFIs, but which contribute substantive insight into the key challenges in development (and follow the activities of the World Bank and other IFIs). Some of them mantain an active blog, such as ODI, Oxfam, CIPE, and CGD. Further –and very importantly–, there are thousands of NGOs and individual bloggers in developing countries who are blogging about the World Bank, the Fund, and other IFIs, many of them providing constructive critiques and crucial feedback. I just blogGoogled and found about 300,000 blog entries for the World Bank, and a similar number for the IMF. Not a small number, by any means, even if it is a lower count than for the WTO, and constituting only one-third of the blog entries for either NATO, the UN, FIFA, or the Olympics…

Finally, closing the loop: some blogging within the World Bank and the IMF has also started in recent times, such as the South Asia poverty blog at the Bank, and the PFM and the Chief Economist blogs at the IMF.

Author : Kaufmann

Source : The Kaufmann Governance Post

Publication date : April 26th, 2008