Understanding the World Bank’s Updated CCE Framework and New Monitoring Indicator: Key Insights and CSOs’ Recommendations

This overview is based on key consultation documents, including “Citizens at the Center: A Strategic Review of Good Practices and Lessons Learned for the Renewal of World Bank Support for Citizen Engagement and Social Accountability – Executive Summary (2024)“ and the “Methodology for ‘Quality of Civic and Citizen Engagement’ WBG Operational Dashboard Indicator.”

1. What is the Citizen and Civic Engagement (CCE) Framework and Why is it Changing?

The World Bank Group (WBG) is renewing its approach to Citizen and Civic Engagement (CCE) to better involve citizens and civil society organizations (CSOs) in policies and projects that impact their lives. While the overarching objective of citizen engagement initiatives is to transition from mere consultations to more substantive forms of participation, the prevailing reality is that many current efforts fall short of empowering citizens with genuine influence over decision-making processes. The review “Citizens at the Center: A Strategic Review of Good Practices and Lessons Learned for Renewal of World Bank Support for Citizen Engagement and Social Accountability” found that while the World Bank’s Citizen Engagement and Social Accountability (CESA) initiatives meet basic requirements, they are insufficient to ensure meaningful engagement. Similarly, the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) conducted an independent evaluation of the World Bank Group’s progress in implementing the Strategic Framework for Mainstreaming Citizen Engagement. The IEG’s report, “Engaging Citizens for Better Development Results,” recommends strengthening efforts to establish citizen engagement that is regular, continuous, and integrated into national systems, rather than relying on one-time consultations.

The CESA review evaluated the effectiveness of the Bank’s CESA initiatives, identified challenges, and offered recommendations for improvement, focusing on four key areas:

1. Improve Project-Level CESA

The review highlights the importance of supporting project teams in designing and implementing high-quality CESA practices to enhance project-level citizen engagement. It points out that while World Bank projects collect feedback from citizens, their participation in decision-making is often limited, reducing the overall impact of citizen engagement. Social accountability approaches, which empower citizens to tackle corruption and monitor projects, are underutilized. Additionally, inadequate stakeholder and political economy analysis hinders projects’ ability to address power imbalances. A significant gap also exists between CESA design and implementation, largely due to insufficient funding and human resources. Moreover, collaboration with CSOs, which is crucial for effective engagement, is often obstructed by bureaucratic procedures.

    2.  Strengthening Country Systems for CCE

The review calls for stronger country systems to support CCE and expand integrated CESA practices from local to national levels, using digital tools where possible. While some World Bank projects have embedded CESA, it hasn’t been fully integrated into the Bank’s broader country engagement efforts. There’s significant potential to use CPF (Country Partnership Framework) products and lending instruments like P4Rs (Program for Results) and DPFs (Development Policy Finance)¹ to advance CESA at a systems level. 

3. Supporting Enabling Conditions for CCE

The review emphasizes that the Bank’s approach to CESA should be more informed by context analysis and support enabling conditions. In countries facing legitimacy and trust crises, strengthening civic space and CESA can rebuild relationships between citizens and the state, particularly in fragile and conflict-affected contexts. However, challenges arise from a lack of political will and capacity among both state actors and citizen/CSOs. Despite the Bank’s commitment to opposing reprisals, it has faced criticism for its handling of some cases. The review also highlights that governance-oriented DPF is a valuable, yet underutilized, tool for supporting the legal, policy, and institutional environment for CESA and civil society.

4. Ensuring Institutional Support for CCE

The review highlights that although the WBG has made commitments to CCE, there is not enough funding or institutional capacity to fully implement these commitments.

II.  What is the New “Quality of Civic/Citizen Engagement” Monitoring Indicator?

To measure how well the WBG is supporting CCE, a new “Quality of Civic/Citizen Engagement” indicator is being introduced in the WBG Corporate Scorecard². This means that the Bank will systematically track the quality of citizen engagement across both projects and country portfolios.

According to the Methodology for the CCE Indicator, the scorecard consists of two key parts:

• Part A: Evaluates project and portfolio-level engagement by assessing the quality and responsiveness to feedback by reviewing stakeholder engagement plans (SEP) and other project related documents. 
• Part B: Assesses systemic engagement at the country level, including CPF commitments to CCE, support for multi-stakeholder dialogue, enabling conditions, and external feedback from civil society, etc..

¹For details on P4Rs and DPFs refer to AWC’s toolkit “A Toolkit for MENA Activists: Understanding the World Bank’s Different Lending Instruments (DPF, PfoR, IPF)”

² The World Bank Group (WBG) Scorecard is a tool designed to track and measure the impact of the WBG’s efforts with a stronger focus on outcomes rather than inputs. It replaces the previous system of over 150 indicators with a more streamlined set of 22 key indicators, making it easier to monitor development progress across all WBG institutions (IBRD, IDA, IFC, and MIGA). More details can be found at: WBG Corporate Scorecards.

III.  Recommendations from MENA CSOs on CCE

During this period of consultations, MENA-based civil society organizations (CSOs) that have endorsed the recommendations are expressing concerns and providing input to ensure that the renewed CCE framework is effective and aligned with the realities on the ground. These recommendations focus on integrating CCE with country engagement strategies, improving accessibility, strengthening verification mechanisms, protecting civic space, and ensuring broader World Bank Group engagement.

1. Aligning CCE with the New Country Engagement Approach
The disconnect between the Citizen and Civic Engagement (CCE) framework and the new Country Engagement Model raises serious concerns about the World Bank’s commitment to meaningful stakeholder engagement. The most recent draft of the Bank’s Country Engagement Model fails to incorporate civic and citizen engagement. This gap became even more evident during the MENA Region Consultation on the new Country Engagement Model on March 11, where there was no mention of strengthening citizen engagement or social accountability mechanisms at the country level. When CSOs raised concerns about these gaps, the Bank failed to acknowledge its shortcomings, despite the CESA review and the IEG review highlighting weaknesses in this area. Instead, the Bank dismissed the issue, claiming that consultations are “great” based on feedback received—ignoring the fact that one-time, checkbox consultations do not grant citizens real influence over decisions that shape their lives. Moreover, the consultation process itself was flawed. It disproportionately focused on participants from the Rabat office, sidelining online attendees who felt they lacked space to meaningfully contribute. A country engagement approach cannot be effective if it relies solely on governments to define priorities. The Bank must recognize that meaningful citizen engagement is not an optional add-on but a fundamental component of ensuring that its interventions lead to real, transformative change. The CPF, which can last up to 10 years now, provides a critical opportunity to institutionalize citizen engagement and social accountability and ensure that the Bank is not only responding to government-defined priorities but also addressing gaps in participatory development. If the Bank is committed to long-term impact, it must actively engage with citizens and support programs that foster participation, particularly in contexts where country systems are restrictive. This approach would strengthen social accountability and ensure that projects benefit the communities they aim to serve rather than causing harm.

Recommendation: The World Bank must align the Citizen and Civic Engagement (CCE) framework with both the new Country Engagement Model and the Country Partnership Framework (CPF). This alignment is essential to ensure that citizen engagement is not an afterthought but a core element driving the success of the WBG’s support to the country.

2. Ensuring Accessibility and Inclusive Stakeholder Engagement
CSOs are emphasizing that meaningful engagement starts with access to information, including the availability of documents in local languages in a timely manner. They are raising concerns about who selects stakeholders for consultations and how to ensure that marginalized communities are adequately represented in decision-making processes.

Recommendation: Include indicators for the accessibility of documents and information in local languages and formats, and outreach efforts to communities who are traditionally excluded from decision-making processes such as rural populations, women, youth, minority groups, people with disabilities, and indigenous communities.

3. Enhancing Verification to Avoid a ‘Tick-the-Box’ Approach
Many CSOs are concerned that the CCE indicator relies too heavily on self-reported documentation rather than independent verification mechanisms.

Recommendation: Move beyond self-reported documentation by integrating independent verification processes into the CCE framework. Introduce third-party assessments, audits, and citizen feedback mechanisms to assess the effectiveness of engagement practices. This would ensure that the CCE framework is not just a formal exercise but a genuine commitment to active, meaningful citizen engagement with measurable impact.

4. Strengthening Civic Space and Enabling Conditions

CSOs stress that assessing the broader civic space is fundamental to understanding the systemic constraints that civil society organizations (CSOs) face, including restrictive laws, crackdowns on dissent, and shrinking freedoms. Without addressing these barriers, efforts to enhance citizen engagement risk being superficial and ineffective.

Recommendation: The CCE framework must go beyond project-level engagement and integrate a comprehensive analysis of the enabling conditions for civic space, particularly in restrictive environments. This includes systematically assessing the state of civic space in each country—whether it is open, shrinking, or closed. Without such an assessment, there is a risk that the framework operates in isolation, failing to acknowledge the political realities that undermine meaningful civic engagement.

Incorporating civic space indicators would provide a clearer picture of the challenges civil society actors face and ensure that development funding does not inadvertently support or legitimize governments that suppress civic freedoms and violate human rights. Additionally, the framework must provide actionable recommendations to mitigate these constraints—such as promoting legal reforms, enhancing protections for civil society actors, and leveraging World Bank influence to encourage governments to create a more open and participatory environment.

5. Expanding CCE to IFC and the Broader World Bank Group
CSOs are questioning whether and how the CCE framework and indicator apply to International Finance Corporation (IFC) projects. They are seeking greater clarity on how private sector engagement is being monitored to ensure that CCE principles are upheld across the entire World Bank Group.

Recommendation: Ensure that the CCE framework and indicators are applied consistently across all arms of the World Bank Group, including the IFC. This would involve a clear and transparent process for monitoring how private sector projects align with CCE principles. Ensuring that both public sector and private sector projects/ initiatives follow the same principles would create a more comprehensive approach to citizen participation across the Bank’s entire portfolio.

These recommendations highlight the importance of aligning CCE with CPFs, improving accessibility, ensuring independent verification, and ensuring that CSOs can operate freely and without fear of reprisals.

Next Steps

The CCE Strategic Framework is still under development, with a final version expected by June 2025. The timeline for implementation includes:

• April 2025: A report summarizing feedback from consultations.
• May–June 2025: Incorporation of stakeholder feedback into the final framework and indicator design.
• September–October 2025: Official rollout of the CCE Scorecard.

The recommendations are endorsed by the following organizations:

1. Wedyan Association for Society Development – Yemen 
2. Tensift Region Development Center (CDRT)- Morocco
3. Onshor – Tunisia 
4. The Organization of Women and Children – Iraq
5. The Talassemtane Association for the Environment and Development (ATED) – Morocco
6. The Tunisian Association for Development Law (ATDD)
7. Shamseya for Innovative Community Healthcare Solutions – Egypt
8. Egyptian Association for Collective Rights
9. Phenix Center for Economic & Informatics Studies- Jordan
10. Tunisian Association for Local Governance (ATGL)
11. The Dibeen Association for Environmental Development 
12. Espace Point de Départ (ESPOD)- Morocco
13. Yemeni Observatory for Human Rights
14. Lebanon Eco Movement
15. Abnaa Al Nazihien Organization – Iraq
16. Terre Liban – Lebanon
17. Studies & Economic Media Center – Yemen

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