On March 8, 2005, the Board approved a number of revisions to the Bank’s policy on the disclosure of information. These changes reaffirm the Bank’s commitment to ensuring increased transparency about its activities (see World Bank Disclosure Policy: Additional Issues – Follow-up Consolidated Report (Revised), February 14, 2005, for details). The policy revisions pertain to the following key categories of information/documents:

1. Country Assistance Strategies and CAS Public Information Notices;
2. Board minutes;
3. Operational policy and strategy papers;
4. Information related to IDA Mid-Term Reviews, procurement plans, IMF-Bank Relations Annexes, Country Re-engagement Notes, Project Completion Notes, the Staff Manual, the budget paper, the staff compensation paper, the Trust Funds Annual Report, and annual reports for specific trust fund programs;
5. Documents related to grant programs funded by the Development Grant Facility (DGF); and
6. Board documentation related to project modifications.

All policy changes will be effective April 1, 2005. The current policy, The World Bank Policy on Disclosure of Information, published as a booklet in 2002, and the Disclosure Handbook, which provides detailed work-flow guidance to staff, are being revised to reflect the changes.

Over the past decade, the World Bank has made considerable progress toward greater transparency. Under its 2002 information disclosure policy, the Bank makes an enormous amount of operational information available to the public, ranging from project and policy documents to strategy and evaluation documents. The 2005 policy revisions aim to improve and enhance the Bank ' s record on information disclosure with a set of proposals that would extend, rationalize, or simplify the provisions of the 2002 disclosure policy.