Choosing international organizations: When do states and the World Bank collaborate on environmental projects?

Abstract

While international cooperation research emphasizes institutional design, states mostly interact with existing organizations. How do states choose organizations for cooperation? We develop a theory of agency choice for development projects, emphasizing the importance of domestic institutions, the scope of cooperation, and the resources of the implementing agency. If states are to cooperate with funding agencies that have abundant resources, such as the World Bank, they must accept more stringent conditions on project implementation. We argue states accept the stringent conditions that resourceful organizations demand if the public goods from project implementation are highly valuable. Empirically, this is the case for democratic states, large projects, and projects that produce national instead of global public goods. We test this theory using data on 2,882 Global Environment Facility (GEF) projects, 1991-2011. The GEF offers an ideal case because various implementing agencies are responsible for the actual projects. States implement projects in collaboration with the World Bank, which has the most expertise and resources among the GEF's implementing agencies, if their regime type is democracy, the project size is large, and the benefits are primarily national. Qualitative evidence sheds light on causal mechanisms.

Geopolitics, Aid, and Growth: The Impact of UN Security Council Membership on the Effectiveness of Aid

“…Bayer et al (2014) provide initial evidence. Their results show that countries prefer to work with UN agencies rather than the World Bank in implementing projects under the Global Environment Facility while being on the UNSC.…”

Analyzing if and how international organizations contribute to the sustainable development goals: Combining power and behavior

“…For them, the most important explanatory variables for IO behavior are state preferences or interstate coalitional politics. These dictate why states establish or select IOs, the extent to which states use their chosen IOs, and why IO rules and behaviors change over time (Bayer, Marcoux, & Urpelainen, ; Dietrich, ; Humphrey & Michaelowa, ; Koremenos, Lipson, & Snidal, ; Lyne, Nielson, & Tierney, ). In sum, state interests dictate IO behavior and limit their autonomous impact on political outcomes.…”

Encouraging clean energy investment in developing countries: what role for aid?

“…Donor agencies often work within set financing windows for individual recipient countries, and counterparts in recipient countries play important roles in setting lending priorities (Bayer, Marcoux, & Urpelainen, 2014;Humphrey & Michaelowa, 2013). Recipient countries that request investment in clean energy facilities are likely also to be the countries that establish good policies for attracting private investment in clean energy (Martinot, Chaurey, Lew, Moreira, & Wamukonya, 2002).…”