ABSTRACT
The Wapenhans Report, whose formal title is ‘Effective Implementation: Key to Development Impact’, was an in-house assessment of the Bank’s entire loan portfolio. The gist of the Wapenhans Report is that a large and increasing number of Bank projects are failing, even when assessed only on narrow economic criteria. The process initiated by Wapenhans comes down to an attempt to launch wholesale cultural change, to wrest the Bank from its entrenched ‘approval culture’ and create one inspired by the desire to see projects actually work. All the VPs at the meeting with Preston agreed that the Bank needed to ‘counteract the negative image generated by Non-governmental organizations (NGO) and other critics’. Some North American organizations most critical of the Bank have established frequent and reliable contact with counterpart NGOs in the South often representing communities on the receiving end of Bank projects.
