Useful Links

The World Bank website

Participating Country Offices

Please see Resources for Civil Society Organizations for links outside the World Bank.

The World Bank and Civil Society

The World Bank recognizes the important role that nongovernmental organizations play in meeting the challenges of development and welcomes the opportunity to work with civil society. The purpose of this website is to keep civil society groups informed about increasing opportunity for interaction with the Bank.

Social Development

Social development is development that is equitable, socially inclusive and therefore sustainable. It promotes local, national and global institutions that are responsive, accountable and inclusive and it empowers poor and vulnerable people to participate effectively in development processes.

Participation and Civic Engagement

Participation Thematic team promotes methods and approaches that encourage stakeholders, especially the poor, to influence and share control over priority setting, policy making, resource allocations and access to public goods and services.

Community Driven Development

Community-driven development focuses on processes that give community groups control and authority over the decisions and resources which affect their lives. This means reversing control and accountability from central authorities to community organizations in the initiation, planning, implementation, operation, maintenance and evaluation of development projects with agencies playing a supportive role. Community-driven development is most appropriately used for the provision of local goods, basic services and the management of natural resources.

Voices of the Poor

As the new millennium begins, the World Bank has collected the voices of more than 60,000 poor women and men from 60 countries, in an unprecedented effort to understand poverty from the perspective of the poor themselves. Voices of the Poor, as this participatory research initiative is called, chronicles the struggles and aspirations of poor people for a life of dignity.

Gender

Over the last several decades, gender issues have attained increasing prominence in the debates over development policy. There is a growing body of evidence and experience linking gender awareness in policy and projects to equitable, efficient, and sustainable outcomes in development. However, these links are still not widely understood nor have these lessons been fully integrated by donors or national policy makers.

Afro-Latin Americans

The aim of the World Bank's program on Afro-Latin Americans is to develop a comprehensive strategy for confronting the issues of poverty and social exclusion faced by the large populations of African descent in the Latin America and Caribbean region (LAC) and at the same time, to mainstream these strategies into LAC's operational programs.

Social Development Initiative for South East Europe

This regional initiative aims to provide the Governments of South East Europe, the donor community involved in the region, and in particular the World Bank with the capacity to carry out social analyses, promote institution building, and launch pilot projects to address inter-ethnic tensions and social cohesion issues in South East Europe.

Children and Youth

The Bank brings a core mission of poverty reduction to its work with children and youth. It also has a commitment to partnerships---we recognize that there are other organizations with knowledge and expertise in children and youth that can give important input to the Bank's work and with whom cooperation is essential.

Indigenous Peoples

Indigenous Peoples Group in the World Bank aims to promaote indigenous peoples' development and ensure that the development process fosters the full respect for the dignity, human rights and uniqueness of indigenous peoples.