Fighting Poverty, Combatting Social Exclusion

The Chinese have a saying: through a drop of water you can see the whole ocean. This chapter analyzes the process of integrating social development policy and practice into the operations of the World Bank through the lens of my own personal experience, a drop of water through which we will see how sociologists and anthropologists transformed the larger organizational culture of the institution.

Anthropology at Work

This is a personal record. I describe my work at the World Bank for over 20 years, telling you how we began a new and continuously evolving professional practice four decades ago, and to what effect. I hope to transmit to students of a next generation the causes that development anthropology stands for, and to pass on my passionate conviction that it must remain a mainstream discipline in the twenty-first century.

Social Sciences at the World Bank and the Broadening of the Development Paradigm

I joined the World Bank in 1972 as a ‘Young Professional’, recruited right after my graduate studies at Harvard. Over the years the Bank entrusted me with diverse jobs and responsibilities, mostly in the Middle East and Africa regions, regarded as the most difficult. This broad spectrum of assignments exposed me to many types of the Bank’s activities, each one a school for understanding complexity and a place of experiential enrichment.

Social Assessment and Resettlement Policies and Practice in China: Contributions by Michael M Cernea to Development in China

We are very pleased to contribute to this volume to express our appreciation for the collaboration with the community of social scientists, sociologists and anthropologists, working at the World Bank. Chinese social scientists joined forces with them on essential activities: development projects, research programs, academic conferences, training courses, and joint books. One of us, Guoqing Shi, has participated in the international symposium in Bieberstein, Germany, where this volume has originated.

Address to the World Bank Sociological Group

I feel myself to be an outsider amongst you: I am a macroeconomist by background, having worked in the UK Treasury for many years. Yet I have become convinced in my time at the World Bank of the importance of understanding the social context of the Bank’s work, and the social impact of Bank lending, especially because of the UK ODA’s experience in this field. As an Executive Director at the IMF too, I have gained important insights into how that institution uses its Board more effectively, with more cooperation, and much greater partnership between the Board and management.

The World Bank and Indigenous Peoples

This article traces the evolution of the World Bank policy on indigenous people. In 1982, the World Bank issued a brief operational policy statement which outlined procedures for protecting the rights of so-called “tribal people” in Bank-financed development projects. Experience has shown, the World Bank directive stated, “that, unless special measures are adopted, tribal people are more likely to be harmed than helped by development projects that are intended for beneficiaries other than themselves. Therefore, whenever tribal peoples may be affected, the design of projects should include measures or components necessary to safeguard their interests, and, whenever feasible, to enhance their well-being.” This protectionist approach emerged from the Bank’s experiences primarily in Latin America where there are well-rooted historical and legal antecedents. Over time, however, the Bank’s approach has evolved to reflect the diversity of indigenous cultures, with more of an emphasis on informed engagement and expanding access to benefits from development rather than on protection alone.

From Onlookers to Participants: How the Role of Social Scientists Has Changed in India’s Development in the Last 70 Years

Prior to the mid-1970, India’s non-economic social scientists had no role in policy, planning or implementation of resettlement, though their skills were relevant for the purpose and anthropologists had the requisite expertise. But anthropologists remained only distant onlookers of the terrible things that were happening in the name of development. In 1974 a historic change took place in the World Bank. This was the appointment of anthropologists and sociologists as regular staff. Thereafter, social concerns began receiving increasing attention in the Bank. This also resulted in a sudden demand for anthropologists and sociologists to prepare projects for Bank financing. India then also began involving anthropologists and sociologists in preparing projects involving social issues. From mere onlookers, they then became active participants in development activities.

The Important Contribution of Social Knowledge to International Development

This essay will reflect on how the contribution of sociology and anthropology enrich the practice of economic development and broader sustainable development aimed at reducing poverty. It decribes the context and reasons why in the early 1970s the World Bank decided to create the first in-house position of a professional sociologist within its central staff. From a tentative experiment starting at the individual scale, a process emerged that built a strong and respected community of development sociologists and anthropologists that has become influential in the World Bank. They produced enduring changes in the Bank’s thinking, policies, operations, and ethics. They brought a distinct body of social knowledge and methods that they practiced and advocated both in-house and internationally. Under their call for Putting People First, they substantially broadened the Bank’s development paradigm.

The Risks and Reconstruction Model for Resettling Displaced Populations

Impoverishment of displaced people is the fundamental risk in development-caused involuntary population resettlement. To counter this central risk, protecting and reconstructing displaced peoples’ livelihoods is the central requirement for equitable resettlement programs.

A Retrospective: Michael M. Cernea (1934–)

Abstract‘Development anthropology is a contact sport,’ Michael Cernea likes to tell his students. His career, from junior researcher in the Romanian Academy of Sciences in the early 1960s to joining the World Bank in Washington D.C. in 1974 as its first-ever in house staff sociologist, and then advancing there successfully to the high level position of the World Bank’s Senior Advisor for Social Policies and Sociology is testament to this observation.