International organizations (IOs) are often criticized for insulated decision-making processes that do not react to the preferences of key stakeholders that are directly affected by them. However, empirical studies probing the degree to which IOs’ policies are aligned with the preferences of such key constituencies are scarce. This paper tackles the gap by studying the case of the World Bank. We argue that congruence with stakeholder preferences increases when recipients have institutional means of participation and decreases when donors restrict the purposes of their funds. We utilize survey data from 269 stakeholder surveys conducted in 114 countries between 2012 and 2022 for our empirical analysis. Our findings carry important implications for the responsiveness of IOs to stakeholders in low- and middle-income countries.
Policy Implications
- International development organizations should consider benchmarking their operations against the preferences of recipient country stakeholders and their populations to assess how congruent they are with the views of key actors in recipient countries.
- Giving recipient countries more voting shares and a seat in the executive board can increase alignment with recipient preferences.
- Ensuring that World Bank projects in developing countries are implemented with staff operating from the field and having more recipient country nationals as part of staff also appears to help strengthen the congruence of spending with stakeholder preferences.
- Allocating more core-funding rather than earmarked funding helps align operations with recipient preferences.
- Donors could also consider allocating more money to pooled funds or core contributions to safeguard recipient ownership.
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