WBG History and Governance Thematic Groups event
A panel discussion with Jim Adams, Cheryl Gray, Daniel Kaufmann, and Brian Levy.
Moderator: Jonathan Fox
The meeting will be hybrid, recorded and is scheduled for 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM EST. Meeting room: MC C3-214.
From the WBG Archives oral histories…
“Jim immediately felt, ‘There’s something wrong here [in Indonesia]. I mean, we can’t keep quiet about corruption. It is going to damage our reputation and eventually damage our relationship with the country.’ I think, like many things Jim did, this was the right thing for him to do at that time, and again he was way ahead of thinking of many people on the staff and, of course, particularly people on Indonesia” (Mark Baird, p. 17).
“What Jim Wolfensohn had not anticipated, I think, was that the issue was not only about trying to clean developing countries or help them clean themselves, but it was about ourselves. I think he had no idea when he started this campaign about corruption that we were part of the problem” (Jean-Michel Severino, p. 24).
Panelists
- JIM ADAMS describes himself as “a product of the Bank.” He worked at the Bank for 37 years, with a focus on East Africa, where he served for seven years as Country Director for Tanzania and Uganda. He then went on to lead the operational policy department for two terms. His final Bank assignment was as Vice-President for East Asia.
- CHERYL GRAY joined the Bank in 1986 as a Young Professional. Over 25 years she worked as a research economist in DEC, as Director for Public Sector Governance in the PREM Network, as PREM Director in the ECA Region, and as Director for the World Bank in IEG. In 2011 she moved to the Interamerican Development Bank as Director of Independent Evaluation before retiring in 2018.
- BRIAN LEVY holds a PhD in economics from Harvard and now teaches at the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles. He worked at the World Bank from 1989 to 2012, where his work focused on interactions between governance and development, including four years as head of the secretariat responsible for implementing the Bank’s governance and anti-corruption strategy. He has published widely on the interactions among institutions, political economy and development policy, including Working with the Grain (Oxford U Press, 2014).
- DANI KAUFMANN, a Chilean national, holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard. Formerly a director at the World Bank, where he was its first head in Ukraine. He co-created global indicators, such as the Worldwide Governance Indicators, the Resource Governance Index, and recently the first global index to measure State Capture. After the World Bank he co-founded and led the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI). He was also a visiting scholar at Harvard University and a member of the faculty of the World Economic Forum (Davos).
Moderator
JONATHAN FOX is professor of development studies in the School of International Service at American University, where he directs the Accountability Research Center. He has followed institutional change at the World Bank since the late 1980s, with a focus on citizen engagement, transparency, accountability and anti-corruption agendas. His recent articles are in World Development, Development Policy Review, Public Administration and Development, Development in Practice, and Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems.
Registrations:
In-Person (MC C3-214 WBG Library)
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Virtual Participation Details
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