By civil society organizations or CSOs, we mean the broad array of labor unions, non-governmental organizations, faith-based groups, foundations, and community-based organizations in civil society. Many leaders of civil society organizations also represent large national or international civil society networks.

FAQs

Through two decades of interaction, we have learned that civil society organizations play many important roles. These organizations help make the voices of the poorest people heard in the decisions that affect their lives. They improve development effectiveness and sustainability, and they hold governments and policymakers publicly accountable.

CSOs contribute local knowledge, technical expertise, and social legitimacy to our projects by their participation, and they enhance our operational performance and the quality and sustainability of the development that occurs. CSOs also bring participatory approaches and new ideas and solutions to the table to solve local problems.

A recent example of the vibrancy of global civil society was the World Social Forum, held in Porto Alegre, Brazil in January 2005. The meeting attracted 150,000 participants who debated and discussed more equitable and sustainable alternatives to current models of economic globalization.

FAQs

Civil society organizations are involved in an increasing number of Bank-financed projects. Their participation has steadily increased over the past decade from involvement in 21.5% of the total number of projects in FY 1990 to involvement in nearly 72% in FY 2003. More than 120 civil society specialists work at the Bank to make sure that the views of CSOs are considered and encouraged in Bank-financed projects.

We produce bi-annual progress reports on our engagement with CSOs. The World Bank-Civil Society Collaboration – Progress Report for Fiscal Years 2000 & 2001 (265 kb PDF) contains statistics on CSO involvement in our operations, as well as examples of civil society and Bank collaboration.

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We have established numerous ways over the past two decades to provide grants to civil society organizations. While our principal activity is to provide loans to governments, we provide grants directly to CSOs or indirectly, via client government-run grant funds created with Bank financing.

Over the past 15 years, we’ve financed more than 100 social funds in 60 countries, for a total of nearly $4 billion. Those funds were used mainly to rebuild war-torn communities, provide social services, and strengthen community organizations. We also manage several grant mechanisms, often in partnership with other donor agencies, to provide grants directly to CSOs in areas such as the environment, micro-credit, micro enterprise loans to entrepreneurs, information technology, and innovative practices.

FAQs

You can subscribe to our monthly electronic publication, the World Bank Civil Society Engagement e-Newsletter, by sending an email to civilsociety@worldbank.org, or view the publication online. Look to the e-newsletter for highlights of some of our policies, programs, and initiatives, which involve and/or may be of interest to civil society. It also contains useful information about upcoming consultations, special events and new policy documents.

Also, for general information about our work with CSOs, visit the Civil Society website. There you will find relevant Bank staff contact information; key documents, policies and topic areas; grant funding mechanisms, and links to news and events.

FAQs