The World Bank celebrated its second annual Integrity Day on November 4th, with an opening address by President Robert Zoellick and comments from Managing Director Juan Jose Daboub and INT Vice President Leonard McCarthy. The President noted the importance of putting integrity at the heart of development and said it was time to 'step up the game,' starting with the Bank's being seen as a model of integrity.
TI Chair Huguette Labelle and TI-USA President Nancy Boswell joined Justices Cario-Morales from the Philippines and Dow from Botswana and Dr. Samuel Paul from Bangalore in providing external perspectives. While TI commended the Bank for significant progress, it underscored some of the key actions yet to be taken. These included attention to narrowing the exceptions that threaten to swallow the new and groundbreaking presumption of transparency adopted in the Bank’s revised Disclosure Policy. The Bank should expand and regularize its external consultation with civil society and encourage its borrowers to do the same. This is particularly important given the increasing crackdown on public access to information and opportunities for civil society participation. Staff incentives still need to be realigned to reward attention to integrity and accountability in order to ensure the necessary change in organizational culture. Finally, we have encouraged the Bank to open Integrity Day to the public and to make the president's remarks public. We are pleased that the remarks have now been posted to the Bank's external website at http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTDOII/Resources/Integrity_Day_Opening_Address_RBZ.pdf
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