| CSOs are increasingly participating in various types of development research undertaken by the World Bank and client governments, such as Economic and Sector Work (ESW), poverty and social impact assessments (PSIAs), and national environmental action plans. Universities, research centers, and NGOs often bring the academic rigor, local knowledge, participatory methodology skills, and independence needed to complement the research capability provided by the Bank and governments. It is common for civil society researchers to be hired as consultants to carry out social analysis, environmental impact analysis, stakeholder analysis, and project evaluations. During the Voices of the Poor study in 1999, for instance, much of the field research undertaken in the 60 participating countries was carried out by local civil society researchers. Increasing numbers of CSOs are also contracted by government agencies and Bank offices at the country level to provide training and technical assistance within Bank-financed projects in such areas as capacity-building, institutional planning, leadership training, curriculum design, and project design. The World Bank Institute (WBI) offers distance learning training to mixed groups of participants form government, businesses, and civil society. The Community Empowerment and Social Inclusion Learning Program (CESI) has trained several hundred indigenous leaders from Latin America and women community leaders from Africa in such areas as negotiation skills, participatory monitoring, and civic participation. As part of its efforts to promote institutional partnerships, the World Bank has been promoting staff secondments and exchanges with member governments, other donor agencies, businesses, and more recently with CSOs. These exchanges can occur in Washington or at the country level, and promote inter-institutional understanding fresh perspectives, and staff capacity-building. Currently there are Bank staff exchange programs with such CSOs as the World Wildlife Fund, Nature Conservancy, McArthur Foundation, and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU).
More Information
**Communications Associate Sought for Civil Society Team**
|
RSS