Speculating on the World Bank’s Involvement in Post-Conflict Reconstruction Operations and Activities

Abstract

Over the last few decades, the World Bank (‘WB’) has gained wide experience in post-conflict peacebuilding by experimenting new approaches to peace-and state-building in a wide range of difficult, fragile and conflict-affected countries such as Burundi, Liberia, and Nepal, all of which were undergoing significant political processes in the area of post-conflict reconstruction and democratic consolidation. The WB is the principal organization of the UN system providing low-interest loans for improvements in countries in difficulties. This paper explores the extent to which the WB can assert a role in the operational management of post-conflict reconstruction and argues that the WB’s increasing engagement with post-reconstruction issues is proper and permissible according both to its Establishing Agreement and its Relationship Agreement with the UN. But this is only provided it is balanced against a recognition of its intrinsic and operational limitations: namely and in particular the limitations that arise, respectively, from the UN Security Council’s competing competence in the same sector and the enduring existence of political prohibition clauses in the WB’s and IDA’s Establishing Agreements. If the WB’s post-conflict activities continue, it will turn out to be a player of great significance and actuality in developing and applying international post-conflict reconstruction norms and principles. Ultimately, given the inextricable link between development and conflict, the WB’s competence over post-conflict reconstruction issues is functional to its legitimacy. Support for the WB’s evolving role in post-conflict reconstruction scenarios will be highest if the WB enacts measures to promote its substantive and procedural legitimacy among member countries. This paper therefore collocates its analysis within the framework of democratic decision-making and argues for a clearer definition of responsibilities among the WB financial institutions and other organizations and organs belonging to the same UN family, such the UN Security Council, ECOSOC and the UN Peacebuilding Commission.