Organizational Impediments to Development Assistance: The World Bank's Population Program

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Abstract
The World Bank has encountered serious difficulties as it has moved from an almost exclusive concern with capital infrastructure into social sectors of development, such as rural development and population planning. The present study, based on an intensive examination of the Bank's experience in the population sector, concludes that the Bank's effectiveness has been constrained by its institutionalized commitments to (i) its clients, the finance and planning ministries of developing countries; (2) its technology for rendering assistance as embodied in its project lending procedures; and (3) its independence from other organizations that provide development assistance. Instead of modifying these commitments in order to improve the Bank's performance in the population field, its officials have recently reorganized the population program in a way that preserves the Bank's basic priorities and procedures without necessarily advancing its population objectives.