World Bank  ·  March 2026

Who Is Minding the Ship? The Board That Approves Everything Cannot Be Held Accountable for Anything

53% of projects satisfactory at completion. $84.4M Board cost annually. The Board has never formally held management accountable for development outcomes in 82 years. The Zedillo Commission identified why in 2009. Nothing changed.

13,273 IEG-rated operations since 1973. The S+ rate fell from 82% in the 1970s to 26% by 2005–09. A Board that co-approves every loan cannot independently oversee it. The Wappenhans Report (1992), the Zedillo Commission (2009), the AIIB comparison. Three reforms that would change the architecture — none requiring a quota review.

IMF  ·  Part 1  ·  March 2026

The Ship That Does Not Keep Score

Zero project ratings in 149 countries. The IEO produces thematic evaluations — valuable, but not a rating of whether the IMF’s work delivers results. You cannot fix what you do not measure.

The IMF’s evaluation architecture compared to the four MDBs. What IEO does. What it does not do. Why the absence of project ratings is not a technicality — it is the accountability gap.

IMF  ·  Nigeria  ·  Part 2  ·  March 2026

Nigeria and the Africa-Wide Emergency Funding: The $3.4 Billion RFI and the Evaluation That Could Not Name It

$3.4bn disbursed in weeks. No performance conditions. The IEO Sub-Saharan Africa evaluation named 19 countries. Nigeria — the largest recipient — was not among them.

COVID emergency lending, institutional self-protection, and the accountability gap that the largest single-country RFI in Sub-Saharan Africa exposed. The Idris arrest. What the IEO evaluation omitted and why it matters.

IMF & World Bank  ·  Part 3  ·  March 2026

The Cold War Across 19th Street: The Fiscal Case for Ending IMF–World Bank Mandate Duplication

$750M–$1.1bn per year in wasted capacity. Same Finance Ministers. Same street. Same week. 35 years of concordats. Nothing has structurally changed.

Five domains where both institutions do the same work. Five country cases where contradictory advice cost governments real money. The 35-year timeline of failed coordination. Six actions that would actually change the architecture.

IMF  ·  AFRITAC  ·  Part 4  ·  March 2026

The Homework It Does Do — And Why the Score Has Not Moved: Isomorphic Mimicry and AFRITAC

Five regional centres. $200M in technical assistance. Not rated. Schick’s seven basics: payroll, procurement, internal control, cash, basic reporting. SSA PEFA says these are not being done.

What AFRITAC teaches and what the PEFA data shows countries still cannot do. The form-function gap in IMF technical assistance. Why the score has not moved despite two decades of capacity building.

IMF  ·  Governance  ·  Part 5  ·  March 2026

Europe’s Chair: Who Sits at the Table, Who Decides, and What It Would Take to Change It

The IMF Managing Director has always been European. The World Bank President has always been American. Both are customs, not rules. A custom you can only change by deciding to be embarrassed by it.

The governance arrangement that has persisted since 1944. What it costs in legitimacy. What changed at the WTO in 2021. What the Spring Meetings could look like if the shareholders chose to act.

IFC  ·  March 2026

IFC Fragile States: 11% Satisfactory and the Additionality Problem

11% satisfactory in fragile states. The PSW: $2.5 billion to go where the private sector would not — used to replace capital the IFC would have deployed anyway. That is a refund, not additionality.

Croupiers in Washington, tables in Kinshasa. The IFC’s mandate in fragile states is the most important and the least delivered. The additionality claim does not survive the data.

African Development Bank  ·  March 2026

AfDB Results: The 94% Problem — Five Named Cases and a Validation Architecture That Cannot Correct Itself

94% satisfactory, every year. Adjusted plausible range: 61–75%. IDEV validates a sample and produces no independent rating. The gap is unpublished.

The task manager who wrote the rating was wrong, and kept it. Medupi. The smile that does not change. Five cases where the documented evidence and the official number tell different stories.

Asian Development Bank  ·  March 2026

ADB Results: The Best Evaluation Architecture in Development Banking — and a 12-Point Gap That Is Not Closing

IED validates 100% of PCRs. Publishes the management-IED gap. Signs its name to the disagreement. The gap: 12 points sovereign. Not closing.

Nine Japanese presidents in fifty-nine years. A rule you can change at a meeting. A custom you can only change by deciding to be embarrassed by it. The best oversight architecture of the five — and what it has and has not delivered.

Inter-American Development Bank  ·  March 2026

IDB: Evaluation Architecture and the Rating Gap — Sixteen Years of the DEF and a 28-Point Management-OVE Divergence

Management: 81% satisfactory. OVE: 53%. Same projects. Same year. A decade. Capital decisions made on the management figure.

The most comprehensive self-evaluation history in development banking. The only institution to evaluate its own evaluation framework — and find the cultural change did not occur. Four named cases. Six failure patterns. What shareholders should require before the next capital decision.

World Bank  ·  DPF  ·  March 2026

Policy Without Performance: Isomorphic Mimicry and the DPO Incentive Trap

MTI S+ rate: 27.5%, down from 41% (2005–09) to 17% (2015–19). SSA CPIA flat at 3.1 for 18 years. 11,628 prior actions. The form-function gap.

Governments adopt the outward forms of reform — laws gazetted, portals launched, strategies approved — to trigger disbursements, while the underlying administrative capability remains absent. 1,551 evaluated DPF operations. 20 years of IEG lessons the Bank has not absorbed. Five reform proposals.