The World Development Report on Governance: 'Best Practice' vs 'Working with the Grain'

The World Development Report for 2017 is on Governance and the Law.  The report fits into (and helps address) two linked debates about development and the role of the World Bank: first is the tension between best practices, rankings, and learning across economies with the ideas of going with the grain and problem-driven iterative adaption that have culminated in the President of the World Bank, Jim Kim, suggesting “we will never go back to the bad old days when the World Bank and other organizations told countries what to do. We don’t do that anymore.”  Second is a debate over the strategic role of the Bank –building consensus and backing holistic endeavors like the SDGs or being more adversarial and pushing prioritization.  Luis-Felipe Lopez-Calva, co-director of the Report will discuss these issues with Michael Klein, former vice president for financial and private sector development at the World Bank and a driving force behind the World Bank’s Doing Business indicators.  An open discussion will follow.