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GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT NETWORK
During the meeting of the Council of the 12th World Congress, in Buenos Aires in August 1999, Jacques Dreze, IEA President, explained at length the possible channels of collaboration between the IEA and the World Bank. One significant channel was IEA's involvement in the Global Development Network (GDN), initiated by the Bank to promote and share policy-oriented development research and knowledge, and to build capacity for this within developing countries. In 1999, the IEA had collaborated with the GDN to survey over 500 research institutes in the developing world for gauging their need for research services. The survey results revealed the need for a global research network that would provide a range of services in partnership with research institutes throughout the world. Seven regional networks had already been initiated by the World Bank in Sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia, Eastern Europe, Former Soviet Union, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia. However, the overall Governance Structure of the GDN had still to be decided. Also the nature of IEA's further collaboration was to be defined more precisely at the GDN meetings and GDN's First Annual Development Conference in Bonn, December 6-8,1999.

To explore the possibilities of such a collaboration, while maintaining IEA's autonomy, Bina Agarwal attended the GDN meetings in Bonn, on behalf of the IEA. She was also invited to speak at the plenary session on GDN's governance structure. Bina Agarwal and Diery Seck (SISERA, Africa) proposed two alternative structures, on which there was substantial discussion, but no final decision was taken at Bonn. To propel the process forward some key questions on GDN's proposed governance structure were posted on the GDN web site, along with the notes presented at Bonn by Bina Agarwal and Diery Seck, for email responses by GDN members.

In addition, a working group was set up under the chairmanship of Lyn Squire (World Bank) to draft GDN's Constitution, taking account of comments received during the email discussion. Bina Agarwal represented the IEA as a member of this working group which also included Kwesi Botchwey (Harvard), Ishac Diwan (World Bank), Randy Filer (CERGE), Kaoru Hayashi (JBIC), Inge Kaul (UNDP) and Dani Rodrik (Harvard).

The working group met in Washington DC on March 17, 2000. Among the central issues discussed were: GDN's objectives; its principles of governance; its scope, legal status and membership; the function, composition and procedures of the Governing Body; and the Secretariat's location. The draft Constitution was posted again on the GDN web site for further comments and in its finalized form was presented at GDN's second annual conference in Tokyo, December 11-13, 2000. The governance structure that emerged from these deliberations was quite similar to that initially proposed by Bina Agarwal at Bonn. The Governing body composition was also announced at Tokyo. Bina Agarwal attended the Tokyo meetings as IEA's representative.

GDN's constitution, as adopted, has a federated structure. It has five guiding principles: Independence, Openness, Democracy, Plurality and Effectiveness. It is multidisciplinary in scope. Its membership is open to both individuals and Institutions. It will seek to maintain both regional and gender balance in its governance and activities. Its activities include holding an annual Global Development conference, running an interactive web site - GDNet, undertaking global research projects, organising Regional Research Competitions, and giving out Global Development Awards for research and grassroots innovative development work at its annual conferences. It was also agreed to make the GDN independent of the World Bank and finally relocate its secretariat in a developing country.

In July 2001, the GDN became independent of the World Bank. It is now an international non governmental organisation located in Washington DC. However, the World Bank will continue to be one of the major founders of the GDN secretariat, for a few years. In July 2004 the Secretariat plans to move to a developing country. For this relocation, in May 2002, out of 22 cities the Governing Body shortlisted five, from among which one will be selected: Cairo, Delhi, Istanbul, Mexico city and Prague.

Over the past year, GDN has also set up regional networks in OECD regions to cover Japan, Australia, Western Europe and North America. Two Global projects are in progress: Bridging Research and Policy, and Understanding Reform.

Bina Agarwal joined GDN's Governing Body as IEA's representative.

In addition to Bina Agarwal, Vittorio Corbo, former Vice President of the IEA, is also an active member of GDN's Governing Body as a nominee of the Latin American regional network.

GDN's Fourth Annual Development Conference has been held in Cairo, 16-23 January 2003. For information on data bases, newsletter, and online discussions GDNet website: www.GDNet.org

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