A panel discussion with Deepa Narayan and Michael Walton.
Hybrid event: Sponsored by WBG History Thematic Group and Economics Thematic Group.
James Wolfensohn re-centered the World Bank on poverty reduction, distancing it from IMF-style structural adjustment and reviving a McNamara-era moral mission. Through the Comprehensive Development Framework, he promoted holistic, country-owned strategies and elevated listening to the poor—deeply influenced by Voices of the Poor—into policy discourse. He championed the Millennium Development Goals, framing poverty eradication as a universal responsibility. Lending shifted toward health, education, and social protection, and PRSCs strengthened ownership and donor coordination. Yet implementation lagged ambition: operational plans were often weak, pro-poor targeting uneven, M&E fragile, and institutional inertia limited the translation of rhetoric into measurable poverty outcomes.
Moderator: Shanta Devarajan, Co-Chair, Economics Thematic Group.
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