Furthermore, the IDA Deputies stressed the need for the Inspection Panel to be extended over the entire World Bank Group. 11 IDA Deputies have carried a number of policy themes throughout the last three rounds of IDA negotiations. Many of these issues, like environmental protection and participation, have been put on the IDA agenda at the insistence of NGOs. Poverty reduction appears as the overriding objective for IDA lending. They don't quite do it again in IDA 12 but come closer than ever before.
Social services continue to gain support over other types of investments.
Not all NGOs are convinced that the Bank is the most cost-efficient source of financing for needed social services. Protecting the environment for future generations reappeared for the third time in an IDA Agreement but appears to be considerably less important than in IDA 10 or 11. The only new point is an instruction to the Bank to report back to the Deputies in 2000 on progress made in main streaming environmental considerations into IDA's regular assistance. The Deputies repeatedly stressed the need to mainstream environmental considerations into Bank operations. The Bank, however, sequenced the instructions from the Deputies so that it now appears that the Bank will first work on main streaming environment into the CAS and then into the project portfolio.