Anticorruption in Transition 2: World Bank Support of Science and Technology Development

By Cheryl Williamson Gray, Joel S. Hellman and Randi Ryterman

The World Bank has gained significant experience and has an important role to play in supporting innovation systems projects (successful programs included Korea, India, Indonesia, Turkey). The Bank’s role typically has been to facilitate and augment reform efforts through its experiences around the world and play the role of an “honest broker” between the productive and S&T sectors and facilitating the reform process by bringing together relevant partners. This enhances the effectiveness of the design and delivery of services and the sustainability of these activities. The Bank’s involvement also encourages that difficult measures are taken, including the raising of institutional accountability. Prudent market tests are applied to the various available interventions and fiscal discipline is imposed on institutions that are in the process of restructuring. Drawing on its experience the Bank can provide the long-term support, advice, and leverage needed during the restructuring phase for institutions that seek to attain greater fiscal independence and to enhance the quality of their services and their contribution to the national economy.This paper concentrates on innovation systems support projects financed by the Bank during 1990–2003, together with a few successful earlier examples, and reviews some 51 projects involving over US$4.2 billion in Bank support.

• Language: English
• Publisher: World Bank Publications
• Release date: Mar 1, 2004
• ISBN: 9780821358085