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Thursday, May 14, 2026
The starting point The multilateral development banks were designed in 1944 for a world that no longer exists. Eight decades later, the architecture has expanded enormously — but IEG’s own longitudinal data shows that development outcomes have not kept pace with the growth in financing. That gap is the subject of this platform.
Mother and child, Dar es Salaam
Why This Matters
Built for a different era. The question is whether they can be reformed for this one.

The Bretton Woods institutions and the regional development banks were created to address the post-war reconstruction challenge and the development financing gap of the mid-twentieth century. They have since grown into a complex ecosystem deploying hundreds of billions of dollars a year across health, education, infrastructure, governance, and climate — a mandate far broader than their founders envisaged, and one that has evolved largely through institutional momentum rather than deliberate redesign.

IEG’s own longitudinal data — tracking project outcome ratings since the 1960s — shows that the share of World Bank projects achieving satisfactory development outcomes has not improved over six decades. In several regions and sectors it has declined. The overlap between Bank and Fund mandates has widened. The feedback loops that should drive learning and correction remain weak. And the people who bear the cost of underperformance are, without exception, those the institutions exist to serve: the poorest and most vulnerable populations on the planet. This platform argues that these institutions can do better — and documents specifically what better would require.

Mother and child, Dar es Salaam — oil on canvas by Muzu — above the author’s desk for fifteen years.
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About MDB Reform

MDB Reform is written by Parminder Brar, a former World Bank Lead Financial Management Specialist and Lead Governance Specialist with field postings in Liberia (2003–2008), Ethiopia (2011–2015), Nigeria (2019–2022), and Tanzania. He was a member of the original PEFA indicator design team. The platform draws on primary sources and two decades of direct field experience to make the case that the institutions we have are capable of doing substantially better — and that the people who depend on them most deserve nothing less.

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