Title_ The World Bank Inspection Panel in Ghana: Civil Society Protest and the Glocalization of Accountability

Author_Aram ZIAI

Pages 39-66

Abstract_Twenty years ago, the Inspection Panel was founded as amechanism of accountability for people negatively affected byprojects funded by the World Bank. It allows them to call for aninvestigation if social and environmental standards of the WorldBank have not been adhered to. Its origin can be traced back topressure exerted by a transnational NGO campaign on the UScongress in the wake of the Narmada Valley Development Project.While the Panel’s history since then shows that it usually does nothave the power to entirely stop a project, the case of the Kwabenyalandfill in Accra (Ghana) proves that it can act as an importantinstrument for—potentially successful—civil society struggleswhich aim at democratizing the current architecture of governance.

Keywords_ World Bank, Global governance, Accountability, Inspection Panel, Ghana