ABSTRACT
As an intermediary between powerful shareholder governments and both
public and private borrowers, the World Bank is influential in defining what is considered the legitimate balance between public and private interests in
economic development, and how these are integrated into particular devel-
opment projects. Since the late 1980s, relations between the World Bank and
project-affected stakeholders on particular projects have been mediated by a due
diligence framework that centers on an environmental review process and a set
of thematic operational policies. In 1997, this framework was formalized as the
World Bank’s Environmental and Social Safeguard Policies, and the following
year, a subset of these were formally adopted by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank Group’s private sector lending arm.
