Strategies of Self-Legitimation – The Cases of UNDP and the World Bank

International Organizations have developed strategies to justify their operations not only towards their environment (as a concerned global public or the like) but also to themselves. In two short case studies, some core practices of self-legitimation that are particular to the World Bank and UNDP will be analysed in their organisational context. The World Bank has developed and constantly updated standardised communication instruments like poverty indicators, inequality maps etc. Here, problem-related knowledge and competence are some of the main signals of self-legitimation. In contrast, UNDP has embarked on a course of encouraging and supporting the empowerment of states from the Global South, as introduced, for instance, in the latest Human Development Report of 2013. This could be seen as a strategy of inclusion and equalisation. The paper will show how these different strategies can be accounted for with regard to the specific challenges the IOs under scrutiny face.