As you read this, World Bank Group leadership is deliberating on the future of civic engagement. They are considering the proposed Citizens at the Center: A Strategic Framework for Renewed World Bank Support for Civic and Citizen Engagement, which aspires to shift civic engagement from the periphery to the center of the bank’s development model, from a risk management mindset to meaningful community engagement. What would it take to make this happen? The answer is straightforward: strong backing from World Bank management and financial resources to match the ambitions.

As financial and political support for global development shrinks, the World Bank can, and must, step up. Even 12 months ago, we faced a different world, albeit with familiar challenges. Now, bilateral and multilateral actors are scaling back, paying less attention to governance, undermining people-centered development, and tightening already narrowing civic space. Yes, the World Bank has a checkered history when it comes to prioritizing the voices and experiences of communities directly affected by its investments, with some notable swings between cycles of emphasis and neglect. Still, the bank remains uniquely positioned to not only sustain, but also advance, investment in participation, accountability, and civic space. Citizens at the Center provides a platform to begin to do so.

Building on the World Bank’s 2014 strategic framework for mainstreaming citizen engagement, Citizens at the Center moves beyond understanding engagement as primarily time-limited consultation and feedback collection. Twenty years ago, the 2005 Paris Declaration on Development Effectiveness held civil society organizations (CSOs) to be development actors in their own right. The World Bank’s 2025 framework recognizes a broader civic ecosystem and explicitly identifies CSOs as partners in project design, implementation, and oversight.

Going further, the framework addresses longstanding institutional blind spots. These include, but are not limited to, recognizing open civic space as fundamental for participation, calling out the World Bank’s chronic lack of institutional incentives and resources, and stressing consistent community engagement throughout the project cycle. Notably, the 2025 framework calls for sustained buy-in from World Bank leadership, particularly at the country-level, to make civic engagement a shared responsibility across bank operations—rather than a procedural add-on.

The World Bank has not yet endorsed the framework. Even if eventually taken up in some capacity, the framework will only be aspirational unless driven by leadership and matched with dedicated resources. Yet, if implemented with seriousness and support, Citizens at the Center could help the World Bank deliver development that works not only for people, but with them.

Why now? What’s at stake?

Donor retrenchment means fewer institutions are investing in governance, accountability, and civic space. Governments are increasingly tightening restrictions on civic actors, steadily eroding opportunities for engagement at a time when communities most need a voice in shaping long-term, effective, and sustainable development.

Development interventions that proceed without meaningful civic engagement are unlikely to meet local needs. This kind of fundamental disconnect makes even well-intentioned efforts vulnerable to basic implementation challenges, threatens long-term sustainability, and most fundamentally, increases risks of harm to the communities intended to benefit. The absence of meaningful participation can also exacerbate distrust between governments, development institutions, and the communities they aim to serve.

Conversely, when development intentionally, thoughtfully, and consistently involves communities and CSOs, time-limited projects achieve greater relevance. CSOs function as bridges between citizens and state institutions, bringing perspectives that can strengthen both project design and implementation. For the World Bank, embedding participation more systematically is not only about social impact—it is also about institutional effectiveness and credibility. The bottom line: stronger civic engagement encompasses and goes beyond risk management and improves the quality of project design and delivery, fosters innovation through local knowledge, and creates accountability mechanisms that strengthen long-term outcomes.

The opportunity

Citizens at the Center includes CSOs as partners, demonstrating a pragmatic understanding of how change happens. The framework also addresses the kinds of persistent institutional gaps that World Bank staff themselves have long emphasized. For example, the framework

• stresses the importance of civic space, thereby acknowledging that participation cannot be effective if civil society actors lack the freedom to operate;
• calls on bank leadership to provide reliable, dedicated funding and to institute clear incentives for staff to dedicate time to developing and sustaining engagement, thereby confronting the kind of enduring institutional barriers that have often reduced civic engagement to compliance-focused procedural checklists;
• provides detailed guidance for meaningfully integrating civil society participation at critical junctures throughout the project cycle, thereby recognizing civil society participation as an ongoing process, clearly differentiated from one-off activities;
• encourages stronger, ongoing partnerships with CSOs—not treating them primarily as potential impediments to be managed, but as real contributors to development effectiveness—thereby pointing toward a more collaborative model of engagement.

What’s needed?

For this opportunity to be realized, several conditions must be met.

First, the framework must be robustly financed. Without funding for engagement mechanisms, staff training, and CSO partnerships, commitments will remain aspirational.

Second, World Bank leadership must signal strong, active, and sustained support. The framework must be championed not only at headquarters but also by country-level directors and teams. When leadership signals that engagement is integral to operational success, staff are more likely to prioritize and pursue it.

Third, there must be clear, tangible incentives for World Bank staff to make civic engagement a core responsibility. Given the challenges inherent in undertaking meaningful civic engagement, staff and their managers must be confident that their efforts will be valued and recognized. This also requires incentives for cross-departmental and sectoral collaboration.

We are now living through tumult and transition, which requires bold strategy and acting with integrity. Communities and other civic actors rightly question whether large, powerful institutions serve their interests. Citizens at the Center offers the World Bank a path in the right direction.