Participation in country economic and sector work.

The paper identifies that using participatory approaches in World Bank country economic and sector work may involve extra costs, as well as some loss of control over timing and quality of the work. It argues that experience has shown that these costs are more than offset by substantial benefits, which include improvements in the Bank-borrower relationship, speedier acceptance of recommendations both by the Bank and the Borrower, and increase in-country capacity for policy research analysis. These issues are discussed by looking at the costs and benefits of the Participatory Country Economic and Sector Work, P-CESW, the different types of participation involved and the systematic involvement of stakeholders. The paper also discusses the experience of the Bank, by looking at steps involved in a P-CESW, the establishment of a Participatory Environment, the identification of questions for analysis and the participatory data collection and analysis. It also addresses issues on strategy and the doÆs and donÆts for Task Managers. It concludes that P-CESW is both feasible and valuable, in that it is not only fully consistent with the BankÆs growing posture of transparent operations and increased disclosure, but it can enhance the BankÆs status on these issues rapidly because CESW it self is such a crucial part of the BankÆs comparative advantage as an analytical institution.