Social Analysis in Project Lending: Writing New Rules and Changing Old Practices

Abstract

AbstractIn 1984 the World Bank placed social analysis formally into the rulebook. For the first time amongst multilateral development banks, the Bank’s rulebook integrated social analysis into a key operational checkpoint before project approval. This chapter examines the way which social analysis pioneers in the World Bank and Asian Development Bank took complementary paths to make new subjects visible, engage them in planning projects, and to codify these approaches in social “rules”. They envisaged continued cooperation among social development specialists, reaching beyond institutional and country borders; and encompassing local partners. In examining these pioneering roles in social analysis the chapter explores the longstanding challenge of addressing the critical relationship of social equity to economic growth in a lending environment.