WDR Online debate FAQ
News|Bretton Woods Project|14 June 2000|url
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Disponible en Francais / en Espanol
WDR 2000/01: On-line Debate
About the World Development Report (WDR)
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What are the aims of this e-conference?
This conference aims to allow, and encourage, an exchange of diverse opinions and knowledge relating to the first full draft of the World Bank's World Development Report on Poverty 2000/01. The Bretton Woods Project and New Policy Institute, invited by the World Bank to independently moderate the discussion, have been working with the Development Forum team at the World Bank to organise the event.
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Anyone who has electronic mail can subscribe to the debate and will become eligible to receive and send messages to the e-conference. To join send a blank email direct to join-wdr@lists.worldbank.org
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The draft WDR was posted on the World Bank's web-site on 18 January (www.worldbank.org/poverty/wdrpoverty/) and can be downloaded chapter by chapter in PDF/Acrobat format. A chapter by chapter summary of the report can be obtained as an email attachment (an 85KB PDF file) by sending an email message to povertynet@forumone.com with "consultation" in the subject line of the email.
To receive the summary as a word document, send a blank email to summary@lists.worldbank.org
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The conference runs for six weeks (21 February to 31 March). At the start of each week a new topic for discussion will be set. Each topic is built around the specific chapters of the report and participants must focus their messages on these topics. A summary of the main points raised in the exchange will be posted early the following week whilst the next discussion is underway. This conference will involve hundreds of people from around the world, so organisers will remain firm in keeping people focussed in their submissions (see Will my email in-box get flooded with messages? What is the conference protocol and how was it devised?)
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Ravi Kanbur, lead author of the Poverty World Development Report, will make a formal response to the final summary of the conference. There is no absolute guarantee that any significant conclusions or comments from the discussion will secure changes in the final WDR. Undoubtedly, the WDR team will be closely follow the discussion given this is the first time a draft WDR has been issued for comment. Participants will be able to judge the impact of the discussion when the final report is published in September.
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Read the draft report before the conference starts and prepare your main thoughts. As with a normal conference, book time in your diary for participating, in this case writing submissions and reading inputs from others.
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No. The software being used to manage the discussion is a specially designed software package which allows participants to control the amount, and type, of messages received in email in-boxes. For example, participants can chose to receive contributions as they are posted, a weekly summary of contribution titles or elect not to receive messages at all.
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Yes, you can unsubscribe by sending a blank message to leave-wdr@lists.worldbank.org
Before doing so you should consider changing your incoming mail options as outlined in "Will my email in-box get flooded with messages?", If you unsubscribe you will still be able to see the web archive of the conference at: www.worldbank.org/devforum/forum_poverty.html
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Just a computer with a modem and email software.
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No, messages will be screened, and no attachments will be allowed.
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The main language of the conference will be English. Submissions will be accepted in French and Spanish but these will not be translated into the other two languages and posted. The weekly and final summaries will reflect all submissions and be available in English, French and Spanish.
The draft WDR text is available in English only (on-line from 18th January) and the summary text available in English, French and Spanish. All conference organising information, such as the protocol, is available in all three languages. Multi-lingual moderators will be available throughout the conference to answer any queries.
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A small team of moderators is in place in London to administer the conference. Their role will be to maintain the list of conference participants, answer queries, and filter incoming messages to ensure they match the conference protocol. Moderators will provide advice to people whose messages are not appropriate. If you have queries or suggestions about the operation of the e-conference, please send them to moderator@npi.org.uk
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Given the large number of participants wanting to discuss such a lengthy and important document, rules have to be set to make the exchange manageable. The conference protocol is a guide for how the conference will work. It aims to keep messages, set for each week, focussed to the topics, short, (extraneous text will be cut e.g. long signatures, attachments, "reply with" text), and relevant (bad language, personal exchanges, self-promotion will not be allowed).
Note: If you feel strongly that you want to write a longer piece about the WDR, which does not fit into the rules required for this e-conference, you can send your contribution to the moderators who will pass the message on to Ravi Kanbur. Where possible we will consider this in our final conference summary.
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As with many physical conferences, the organisers felt discussion could usefully be kick-started by commissioning very short pieces highlighting key issues and arguments around each week's chosen topic, including alternative approaches which conference participants may want to consider. The organisers have approached people to submit a short initial response under each of the topics. These should not be treated as guidance from the organisers, but just in the same way as other conference submissions.
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The organisers, Bretton Woods Project and New Policy Institute, have established a steering group to help with the following aspects: encouraging people to participate in the conference, review its organisation (protocol, moderation etc), help select the weekly topics, and review the final conference summary. Members of the group, shown below, will "meet" only virtually, on email and telephone conference calls.
Steering group members
Filomeno Sta. Ana, Action for Economic Reforms, The Philippines
Laura Frade Rubio, Women's' Eyes on the World Bank, Mexico
Mike Waghorne, Public Services International, France
Rene Segbenou, Consultant, formerly with INADES-Formation, Cote D'Ivoire
Alex Wilks, Bretton Woods Project, UK
Catherine Howarth, New Policy Institute, UK
PROVISIONAL, Kamal Malhotra, UNDP, New York
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The Bretton Woods Project and New Policy Institute have had their costs met through a grant from Cornell University Dept. of Agricultural, Resource and Managerial Economics, under Grant #98-54654-GSS from the John D. and Catherine T. McArthur Foundation.
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WDR draft
Chapter by chapter Summary of draft (Adobe Acrobat)
Contact moderator
Live discussion
World Bank Poverty
Bretton Woods Project
New Policy Institute
About the World Development Report (WDR)
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An annual World Bank report aiming to set out current thinking on an aspect of development.
The report is mainly analytical, focussing on issues rather than on evaluating specific World Bank operations which is done in other reports. The Bank's Board, however, normally discusses the operational implications of WDR conclusions after publication, and they frequently form the basis for development interventions in future.
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The WDR is the World Bank's major annual statement on development analysis and policy. Because of the World Bank's reputation and outreach, the WDR is very widely distributed and quoted in the press and in subsequent development strategies and analytical publications. Dr Cord Jakobeit, Visiting Professor of Political Science at the University of Hamburg, recently commented:
"Due to its financial clout alone, the Bank as a globally leading (if controversial) think tank and a globally committed donor has a special position in international development policy. Because it has in many cases the power of definition and interpretation, its publications must be taken seriously"
Development and Cooperation, November/December 1999, p. 5
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The WDR lead author is appointed by the Bank's Chief Economist. For this report Ravi Kanbur was chosen. From 1989-97, Kanbur was a senior official in the World Bank before moving in 1997 to become T. H. Lee Professor of World Affairs and Professor of Economics at Cornell University. Kanbur has convened a team of people from inside and outside the Bank to work with him writing the report. For more details on other members of the team see: www.worldbank.org/poverty/wdrpoverty
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In the past WDR teams have only engaged very selectively with outsiders when preparing the report. The Poverty WDR 2000/01 has broken new ground in this respect. The team was appointed two years before the report was due, a number of background papers were commissioned from a variety of organisations, and meetings were held across the world to scope and fill out the report. This e-conference is complemented by at least one face to face meeting between the WDR team and external actors on every continent.
World Bank President James Wolfensohn says that
"WDRs are one of the Bank's critical instruments for dialogue with the development community at large. Consultations bring to us alternative perspectives on the topic under consideration, and the reports invariably benefit from them. But the report team receives a wide range of comments, many of them opposed to each other, and the final output reflects the judgement of the report team. I have emphasized that we should not just be reciting generic answers but raising fundamental questions to which there are no easy answers."
This text may be freely used providing the source is credited.
This page is: <http://brettonwoodsproject.org/art.shtml?x=16240>
Published: 14 June 2000 , last edited: 8 February 2010
Viewings since posted: 1779
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Επίκεντρο η Ελλάδα (Greek language articles)
Με αφορμή την χωρίς προηγούμενο δραστηριότητα του ΔΝΤ στην Ελλάδα, το Βretton Woods Project παρέχει ορισμένα απο τα άρθρα του στα Ελληνικά. Ελπίζουμε ότι η ανάλυση και οι πληροφορίες θα είναι χρήσιμες για τους‘Ελληνες πολίτες.
http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/el/
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