Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
ETHICAL AND
SOCIETAL ISSUES
The World Bank is not a typical bank, but two financial institutions
owned by 185 member countries. The International Bank for
Reconstitution and Development (IBRD) is the part of the bank that
focuses on middle-income and creditworthy poor countries, and
the International Development Association (IDA) focuses on the
poorest countries. Together, these institutions provide “low-interest
loans and interest-free credit and grants to developing countries
for education, health, infrastructure, communications, and many
other purposes,” according to the World Bank Web site. The bank
has about 10,000 employees worldwide, with loans of about $20
billion annually.
In recent years, the World Bank has suffered from front page
scandals regarding suspected improprieties with its senior-level
officials. In 2007, World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz was pres-
sured to resign, and in 2005, vice president and CIO Mohammed
Muhsen retired under a cloud of suspicion. However, while the
press and the world were focused on corruption in the World
Bank, some very positive developments were taking place with
World Bank infrastructure and information systems that went
relatively unnoticed.
The World Bank has traditionally been run as a top-down hier-
archy, which is a traditional organizational structure. In recent
years, through the use of global information systems, the World
Bank has transformed into a “decentralized, front-line, matrix
organization,” observes a recent article in Baseline magazine.
Rather than controlling information systems from the top, the
World Bank has been investing to empower its clients with the
information systems they need locally to participate in the global
economy.
The effort to distribute economic knowledge to World Bank
customers began in the mid-1990s with then-president James
Wolfensohn. In a 1996 speech to the Bank Board of Governors,
Wolfensohn said, “The revolution in information technology
increases the potential value of [the bank's development] efforts by
vastly extending their reach. We need to invest in systems that will
enhance our ability to gather information and experience and
share it with our clients.” Ex-World Bank CIO, Mohammed Muhsen,
embraced that mandate to revamp the World Bank's information
infrastructure and communications networks to create a global
knowledge-sharing network, which has been highly praised in the
industry.
Wolfensohn and Muhsen were among the first to formalize
what is now referred to as a knowledge management information
system. Muhsen defined his mission as follows: “We position
ourselves at a major intersection of the network economy where
we help to connect global learning opportunities with investment
assistance to governments. Put another way, it's about having two
currencies: the currency of money and the currency of knowledge.
We believe our work in bringing knowledge and information to
developing countries is as important as the capital and invest-
ments that we provide as an engine for development.”
Muhsen's project cost the World Bank hundreds of millions of
dollars over several years. It included many information system
packages including an SAP ERP system; an Oracle Record Integrat-
ed Information System; a multilingual, natural-language system
from Teregram for document management; a custom-designed,
Web-based dashboard interface; Lotus Notes for e-mail, online
collaboration, and content storage; and IBM WebSphere. While
these systems cost the World Bank nearly $100 million, the bulk of
its investment went to building its own global, high-speed network
infrastructure complete with regional satellites and miles of fiber
optics to provide network connectivity to remote and poor regions
of the world.
Discussion Questions
1.
Why do you think Muhsen believes that the knowledge
provided to its customers by the World Bank's information
system is equal in value to the money loaned? Do you
believe this to be true? Why?
2.
What unique challenges does the World Bank face when
designing an organization-wide information system?
Critical Thinking Questions
1.
Once the network infrastructure is created that connects
the World Bank to its customers, what types of services
might it support?
2.
Mohammed Muhsen invested 17 years of his life in devel-
oping the World Bank's international knowledge network,
but retired under a “cloud of suspicion” over investments
he allegedly made in an information system company that
was contracted by the World Bank. What lessons can be
learned from the unfortunate circumstances of Muhsen's
retirement?
SOURCES:
McCartney, Laton and Watson, Brian, “World Bank: Behind the IT
Transformation,” Baseline, August 5, 2007,
www.baselinemag.com/
print_article2/0,1217,a=212463,00.asp.
World Bank Web site,
www.worldbank.org,
accessed December 27, 2007.
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