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Global Challenge
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Decision making at levels above that of the nation state is an unavoidable reality. A web of connections binds us globally through trade, finance, and communications. Problems such as global warming and spread of disease are global in nature, and require global solutions.The growth in the number and scope of intergovernmental organizations reflects the need for coordinated state action. Yet, there is also a growing recognition that states alone cannot respond to such multiple and diverse issues. As a result, nonstate actors such as transnational corporations and international nongovernment organizations have gained an increasingly important role in the governance of international affairs, contributing their capabilities and providing greater flexibility in addressing global issues.*
Individuals and communities across the world are affected by decisions taken by such increasingly powerful international organizations. This dispersal of decision-making power has led to concerns over the legitimacy of organizations that operate at the global level, and over who takes responsibility to ensure that decisions taken by international institutions are not harmful, but beneficial to the ones they affect.
Traditional forms of accountability are no longer appropriate for understanding accountability in the context of multilevel governance. State-based accountability is ill equipped to provide those influenced by international institutions with an adequate voice in how decisions at this level are made.
As Grant and Keohane noted in their 2005 article, “Accountability and Abuses of Power in World Politics,” published in the American Political Science Review, other mechanisms have emerged for holding international institutions accountable: supervisory (for instance the World Bank is subject to supervision by states), fiscal (funders can sanction recipients of funding), legal (organizations must abide by formal rules), market (investor and customers exercise influence through markets), peer (mutual evaluation from peers, such as codes of conduct), and public reputational accountability.
As Newell and Bellour noted in their working paper, Mapping Accountability: Origins, Contexts and Implications for Development (Institute of Development Studies, 2002), despite the presence of such mechanisms, the complexity and density of the relationships between actors across national, regional, and global levels have led to the emergence of a multitude of accountability gaps—fissures between those that govern and those that are governed that prevent the latter from having a say in, and influence over, decisions that have significant impact on their lives.
The inability to hold international institutions accountable is exacerbated by power imbalance as weak actors lack the capacity to hold powerful international institutions accountable for their decisions and actions (Grant and Keohane, 2005).
The future legitimacy and effectiveness of global governance rests on the current generation’s ability to address these gaps and to tackle the challenge of meaningful inclusion of affected individuals and communities in the multilateral arena. Mechanisms are needed to hold powerful inter- national institutions accountable, and new understandings need to be developed of what accountability means in practice.
The increased power of international institutions has not been matched with effective and comprehensive accountability mechanisms. There is an increasing recognition of this fact both by organizations themselves and by other external actors, resulting in significant pressure for change.
Although new accountability mechanisms at the global level cannot be built overnight, organizations could start taking more responsibility for their decisions. Moreover, increased accountability of international institutions is likely to produce better policy outcomes.
The sense of ownership that is created through effective accountability mechanisms leads to more relevant decision making and ultimately to better implementation of these decisions. Genuine involvement of affected communities in the decision-making process is likely to lead to policies that will respond to their needs.
Decisions could be implemented and sustained if a consensus exists around them. Last but not least, accountability gaps need to be addressed because of citizens’ inherent right to input into the decisions that have impact on their lives. As the world becomes more interconnected and as a greater number of policies are decided at international levels, there is a need to adjust our understanding of citizenship to reflect this.
In the context of multilateral development banks (MDBs), one of the leading critiques first issued against them has been the belief that these international institutions were rarely held accountable for their actions, particularly with respect to the environmental, social, and cultural impacts of project investment and structural adjustment lending.
Over time, following several major campaigns worldwide that revealed fundamental problems with respect to how MDB policies were followed, pressure from civil society and some national governments led to the creation of independent accountability mechanisms that would at least help ensure that MDB activities were in compliance with their own policies.
In 1993, the World Bank led the way by establishing an Inspection Panel that was charged with investigating claims from project-affected peoples regarding projects financed by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Development Association that allegedly violate World Bank policies, procedures, and loan agreements. Several regional development banks including the Asian Development Bank, Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) followed with the creation of similar mechanisms.
Although new accountability mechanisms at the global level cannot be built overnight, organizations could start taking more responsibility for their decisions
Thirteen years later, on 18 February 2006, leaders of African Development Bank, ADB, IADB, EBRD, European Investment Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and World Bank agreed to work together to develop concrete proposals to assist countries in strengthening their capacity to combat corruption and to improve cooperation with civil society and other stakeholders with the goal of enhancing trans- parency and accountability.
More importantly within the context of this edition of ADB Review, MDB leaders reached consensus on the policies and practices necessary to address internal issues of corruption, to strengthen transparency through information sharing, to improve the consistency of their investigative rules and procedures, and to assure compliance and enforcement actions taken by one institution are supported by all others.
A task force was set up with a view to provide feedback into the development of a uniform framework for preventing and combating fraud and corruption. Although the goal of concluding an agreement by the September annual meetings of the World Bank group and IMF will not be easy to deliver, these institutions have embarked on an endeavor that will be closely monitored by civil society and accountability advocacy groups alike.
While this is a commendable initiative, the question of how the needs of affected communities will be integrated into this process remains to be answered.
* For more on this see Blagescu, de Las Casas, and Lloyd. 2005. Pathways to Accountability: The Global Accountability Framework, One World Trust, London (UK).
Through its Accountability Programme, the One World Trust enhances the accountability of global organizations to their stakeholders by providing training, specialized consultancy, dialogue space, and knowledge resources. For more information, visit www.oneworldtrust.org.
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