World Bank President
From Networked Advocacy
The worldbankpresident.org blog is a collaborative effort of several individuals and organizations monitoring governance at the international financial institutions.
The site has tracked media coverage, gossip, and official and civil society statements and actions around the selection and appointment of two World Bank presidents. Although many individual organizations also follow the presidential selection process, the blog enables civil society groups to release breaking news and analysis quicker, more informally, and even more confidentially than through organizational websites or materials.
The site is a great example of network actors - in this case, those concerned with the activities of the international financial institutions - coming together to share and provide information in collaborative new ways for the greater benefit of their cause.
The story of the blog, as written on the worldbankpresident.org website:
This blog was originally set up the day in January 2005 that former World Bank president James Wolfensohn announced he would be retiring. We wanted to shine a light on the medieval process for choosing the head of this very powerful institution - the fact that the position is in the gift of the US government.
Sadly despite our efforts to expose the behind the scenes manouevres and dealings, George W. Bush did get to tap a candidate on the shoulder and put him at the top of the Bank.
We tracked and informed the global reaction to the Wolfowitz appointment, almost entirely of alarm, but decided in April 2005 to put the site on ice and let the tracking of Wolfowitz in office take place elsewhere.
The predictions on this site about the problems Wolfowitz would cause proved true and in April 2007 bubbled up very dramatically in the world’s media. The time had come to start blogging again.
With new members in our blogging team and masses of energy, we have fed journalists tips for stories, inspired activists to ramp up their challenges, and emboldened more officials to speak out.
