At the World Bank, political analysis has been promoted by
intellectual entrepreneurs within the Governance and Public
Sector Management cluster, which is part of the Poverty
Reduction and Economic Management Network (PREM);
but its actual operational implementation has been led by
regional sector managers and specific country management
units. The fact that the Bank does not have a governance cadre
akin to DFID’s has meant that, without a clear set of best
practices to follow, regional sector managers and CMUs were
free to experiment with governance and political analyses as
they saw fit, usually depending on the personalities involved
and without any kind of strict quality control. The Governance
Partnership Facility multi-donor trust fund enabled
the creation in 2009 of a “PEA Community of Practice,” with
about 75 core participants and 300 members across professional
networks and regions. Although not a very formal
instrument, the Community has sought to centralize knowledge
management, providing ad hoc assistance with terms of
reference and consultants to country teams, and disseminating
some of the guidelines developed in Washington. Indeed, the
GPF is deemed to have been extremely helpful for the governance
agenda, not least due to its ability to finance governance
staff positions in a context of Bank-wide budgetary constraints
and a conscious decision not to recruit governance specialists
for country offices (GPF Secretariat, 2012).