This paper addresses the influence of the World Bank in the institutionalization of the principle of ownership of development policies that is enshrined in the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. There is an ongoing debate regarding this principle and how it is operationalised: critics point to the fact that the one indicator of ownership – the existence of a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) – is not adequate. This claim is based on the fact that the PRSP has to be approved by the World Bank and its design ultimately reflects a maintenance of the previous policy conditionality favouring neo-liberal macro-economic policy options. While the meta-narrative attached to the new aid paradigm seems to replace the previous logic of consequences based on donors’ interests for a logic of appropriateness based on aid effectiveness norms, critics argue that this shift is more apparent than real. Developing countries have committed to more leadership and control over their development policies in the Paris Declaration. However, it is the World Bank that is setting the rules on how this should occur in terms of process. This article analyses the dynamics of informal legalization and argues that in circumstances where states have not specified their commitments in detail, IOs take windows of opportunity to enforce their own priorities, often through technical procedures. Through the development of intricate monitoring mechanisms, IOs become the supervisors of commitments that have not been clearly set out in the beginning and that serve the IOs’ agendas. The analysis of how the principle of ownership was inscribed in the Paris Declaration, how it was operationalised and in particular how it is monitored, provides clues to understanding the influence of an international organization like the World Bank in the process of institutionalization of norms that serve the organization’s own agenda.
