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World Development Report

The World Bank set a new standard for civil society consultation about its annual World Development Report (WDR) when Public World organised and moderated a multi-lingual global electronic discussion about the 2004 edition, Making Services Work for Poor People.

The exercise enabled civil society organisations, labour unions, academics and anyone else with access to an Internet connection to offer in-depth comments about an early draft of the report, and to engage in dialogue with its authors, who responded to the comments.

The seven-week e-discussion broke new ground by providing online translation to and from French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish, as well as English. Any contribution posted in any of the five languages appeared on the weblog in all five within 24 hours of being received.

Follow-up evaluation showed it was also a learning experience for many participants. For example, Olga Klimova, international secretary of the All-Russian Local Industries and Public Services Workers’ Union, wrote to tell us it had been a “very important experience” for her union.

For more information about our services of this type, please email admin@publicworld.org.