Expertise at Street Level: The Role of Staff Expertise in World Bank Project Success

Research on International Organisations increasingly recognises the autonomy and influence of international bureaucrats in executing the operations of these organisations. States are said to delegate to international bureaucracies because they gain from using their expertise. While international bureaucrats collectively possess expertise, the kind of expertise that individual bureaucrats possess varies. International bureaucrats are a group characterised by diversity in backgrounds and prior experience, they have worked in varying country contexts, on varying kinds of projects and they have varying educational backgrounds. These variations can provide them with different kinds of expertise that can shape how they go about executing their tasks. Little is known about the ways in which this differing expertise of policy implementers in International Organisations shapes the execution of their operations on the street-level. This paper aims to address this gap by developing an explanation of the role that the expertise of international bureaucrats plays in the effective execution of their tasks. It focuses on the role of three different kinds of expertise of staff members: formal expertise, practical expertise and local expertise. The first, formal expertise is derived from the educational background and (social) scientific training of international bureaucrats. Educational background can serve as a powerful tool to shape the ways in which individuals go about executing their tasks. There are disparities in the kind of skills one can acquire at different universities and in different degrees. These differences could, in turn, shape the effectiveness of international bureaucrats in performing their tasks. The second, practical expertise is gained through experience in executing operations. Being exposed to similar projects in the past can give international bureaucrats experience with the pitfalls of these kinds of operations. Therefore, prior exposure to similar projects could increase the effectiveness of international bureaucrats. The third, local expertise, comes from having worked in the country previously. This can allow bureaucrats to anticipate local difficulties to bureaucratic operations and orchestrate compromises between the expectations of the bureaucracy and local peculiarities. These compromises can enhance the likelihood that a project designed in the offices of the International Organization can be executed effectively on the street-level. The paper then tests these explanations by analysing the influence of World Bank staff’s background on the quality of preparation and success of World Bank projects evaluated by the World Bank Independent Evaluation Group. The empirical tests draw upon a novel dataset of the background of more than 1000 World Bank Task Team Leaders, responsible for more than 2000 projects. In doing so, the paper contributes to understanding the factors that make international bureaucrats more effective in executing their tasks on the street-level.