This series of events showcases recent research from across the interdisciplinary field of global governance. They are organised by the Global Governance Centre on behalf of all the partners of the Global Governance Research Centre Consortium.
China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) represents a potential challenge to the World Bank: The AIIB’s founding countries appear to have turned away from some World Bank projects in favour of working with the AIIB instead.
In this seminar, we examine the World Bank’s response to this competition, focusing on its efforts to retain the AIIB founders' participation. Drawing on the accommodation dilemma framework developed in the introduction to this special issue, we explore World Bank project evaluations.
Our analysis reveals that World Bank projects for AIIB founding members have systematically received higher self-assessed evaluations since their accession to the Chinese-led institution, a pattern that is not corrected by the Bank’s independent review process. We contend that these positive evaluations offer AIIB founders certain benefits that may appease them, yet remain subtle enough to minimise contagion risk, lest accommodating AIIB founders provoke similar actions by other countries.
The study provides insights into the strategic use of nuanced policy instruments and the dynamics of accommodating countries in the context of contested multilateralism.