The World Bank Group: investing in poverty immersions (PLA 57)

Why would a leading public international organisation venture into an immersion programme for its managers? How difficult is it to organise and sustain such a programme? What are some of the challenges of sustaining it? And what lessons might we learn from the experience? This paper describes the efforts of the World Bank Group in trying to learn through immersion experiences. The World Bank Group began its Grass Roots Immersion Programme (GRIP) in the mid-1990s. FRED NUNES explains how it all began, reflects on the Bank’s efforts to learn and change, and closes with some thoughts about where the Bank might go from here.

Participatory Learning and Action (PLA, formerly PLA Notes) is the world's leading series on participatory learning and action approaches and methods. PLA publishes articles on participation aimed at practitioners, researchers, academics and activists. All articles are peer-reviewed by an international editorial board.

Guest editors: Izzy Birch, Raffaella Catani with Robert Chambers.