Governance and Accountability: The Regional Development Banks

Abstract

Good governance has become a mantra of the movement seeking to make multilateral financial institutions more accountable to their stakeholders while improving institutional governance. Although much of the visible criticism has been directed at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, the "regional" development banks share many of the same governance and accountability problems. Important issues relating to governance and accountability include the banks' heavily unequal voting power based on capital contributions, limited transparency and disclosure requirements, questionable efficacy of monitoring programs on the impact of the banks' projects, and limited scope of the banks' private complaint mechanisms. This Article undertakes a thorough survey of the current state of governance and accountability at the African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the Inter-American Development Bank. Understanding the banks' structures and policies relating to governance and accountability is crucial to evaluating critics' charges that the banks are ineffective, undemocratic, secretive, and even facilitate human rights violations and environmental destruction.