Early Engagements

This chapter covers the Bank’s development assistance in Indonesia and Palestine-Israel that helped the author appreciate the demand side of information technologies. Appointments in the Bank’s corporate strategy and performance evaluation functions helped the author understand the inner workings of complex aid organizations like the Bank. He critiques the managerial culture of the Bank and its impact on innovation and risk taking as required to harness the digital revolution for development. He argues for a new style of development assistance that empowers client countries and engender ownership and innovation. He calls for a shift in strategic planning practice from rigid documentation and routine transactions to strategic thinking and agile, adaptive, learning, and communication-intensive processes.