ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the development of the World Bank's Knowledge Bank initiative and assesses its impact on enhancing the World Bank's accountability after the 2008 United State-led global financial crisis. It traces the evolution of the World Bank's knowledge agenda, which has had many critics along the way. The chapter examines World Bank's re-incarnated Knowledge Bank initiative faces complex external and internal challenges and will need to undertake key policy changes in order to fully achieve the World Bank's broader effort to reform the institution into a more responsive, accountable and legitimate organization. For clients, the knowledge and learning agenda, as it has come to be known at the World Bank, can enhance transparency of decision making and empower the poor through projects that address local development challenges. Knowledge initiatives must contend with the challenge of these competing functions and establish a strategic vision that promotes institutional coherence.
