ABSTRACT

Multilateral institutions occupy a dominant role in the developing world as they provide both much-needed loans and technical assistance. Much has been written about them, and there is no shortage of technical information concerning their financing, lending and impact, but what is often lacking is a concise introduction, focusing on key aspects of these institutions that are important for understanding both the politics of their functioning and the changes and challenges that affect them. Multilateral institutions as a term is used to describe many different global institutions; however, in this chapter it includes the major multilateral development banks (MDBs) – the World Bank, the three largest regional development banks, the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). As these institutions are not only complex, but also perform a wide range of different tasks, they cannot be approached as unitary actors. What is needed is an approach that highlights its internal processes and politics. The first part of this chapter looks at power and organization in such institutions, while the second part addresses the changes and challenges they have encountered.