Independent research & practical ideas for global prosperity

The World Bank: What Should Its Future Be?

Oct 18, 2007

This half-day CGD conference brought together leading thinkers and policy makers from developing and donor countries for detailed discussion on the future of the World Bank. The goal of the conference was to generate discussion about and help put critical reforms of the Bank on the agenda at the Bank itself and in the larger development community.

The conference opened with a high-level panel discussion chaired by CGD president, Nancy Birdsall on key tasks for the World Bank. Panelists included Kemal Dervis, Administrator, UNDP; Jessica Einhorn, Dean, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University; Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former Minister of Finance, Nigeria and current Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Brookings Institution and Ngaire Woods, Director, Global Economic Governance Program, Oxford University.

The opening panel was followed by technical sessions on specific issues such as the role of the Bank in low-income countries; governance of the Bank and the appropriate Bank mandate for global public goods. Featured speakers and discussants included Francois Bourguignon, Director, Paris School of Economics, Dennis de Tray, Vice President, Center for Global Development; Pierre Jacquet, Chief Economist, Agence Française de Développement; Domenico Lombardi, President, The Oxford Institute for Economic Policy, Oxford; Lawrence MacDonald, Director of Communications and Policy, Center for Global Development; Trevor Manuel, Minister of Finance, South Africa; Steve Radelet, Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development and Arvind Subramanian, Joint Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development and Peterson Institute for International Economics.

World Bank president Robert Zoellick delivered closing remarks and took questions from the audience.

Read Pierre Jacquet's paper (pdf, 830K)
Read event transcript (pdf, 306K)

Kemal Dervis and Nancy Birdsall	Ngaire Woods and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
Jessica Einhorn	Francois Bourguignon
Steve Radelet, Pierre Jacquet, Dennis de Tray	Domenico Lombardi, Trevor Manuel, Lawrence MacDonald
Robert Zoellick