In November, the Civil Society Policy Forum (CSPF) interim working group, created in 2016, announced the names of individuals elected by civil society to serve on the permanent CSPF working group. The permanent working group will serve as an interlocutor with the Bank and Fund’s civil society teams on the planning and implementation of the CSPF at the IMF and World Bank spring and annual meetings (see BWP Dispatch). The working group is expected to commence work in 2018, after the interim working group completes drafting its terms of reference by the end of December.
The new members are: Godswill Agbagwa (Center for Social Awareness, Advocacy and Ethics Inc., Nigeria), Reema Nanavaty (Economic and Rural Development, SEWA, India), Frank Vogl (Transparency International, Germany), Marcelo de Jesus (Fores, Argentina), Walid Alkhatib (Center for Strategic Studies University of Jordan, Jordan), Abdul Qadir (Atlas Service Corps, USA), Faustina Fynn-Nyame (Population Services International, USA), and Zahra Bazzi (Arab NGO Network for Development, Lebanon). The 2018 working group will also include three interim members, who are staying on for continuity, as well as two-to-three Indonesian representatives, as the 2018 annual meetings will take place in Bali, Indonesia, in October.