By Toby McIntosh
If you request information under the World Bank’s Access to Information Policy and receive a denial there are two levels for appealing.
First, you can appeal to the internal Access to Information Committee, made up of 11 Bank staff members. If still unsatisfied, you can appeal to the external Access to Information Appeals Board, made up of three independent experts on disclosure policy.
The Board can overrule the Committee and its decisions are final.
The Committee has issued 103 decisions beginning in 2010. And the Board has issued 18 decisions since 2012.
Five of the Board’s decisions concern an important exemption in the access policy, the so-called deliberative process exemption. In all five cases, the Board has disagreed with the Committee and ordered the release of some documents.
A pattern has emerged. The Committee asserts a broad reading of the exemption while the Board takes a narrower approach. It’s now clear that the Committee gives no deference to the Board’s interpretation.
In fact, the Committee in its rulings doesn’t even mention the Board’s decisions.
Eye on Global Transparency (EYE) experienced this recently after the Committee denied a request for documents about a Bank project in Lesotho.
EYE on Oct. 13 appealed the Committee’s decision. (EYE Appeal of AIC Lesotho decision, Oct. 13, 2026)
Ignoring the Board’s decisions would be consistent with the civil law systems used in about 150 nations. Precedent is not legally binding in civil law systems. By contrast, under the common law system practiced in about 80 nations the doctrine of stare decisis obligates courts to honor precedent.
As a practical matter, this means that those whose requests have been rejected by the Committee should consider appealing to the Board. (Both the AIC and AIAB decisions can be found on an Appeals page.)
Separately, EYE has asked the Bank, “Does the AIC consider AIAB [Board] decisions irrelevant?” No response has been received.
EYE Appeals Board Lesotho Decision
EYE’s appeal refers back to past Board decisions.
One Board decision found that a document known as an aide memoire, the subject of EYE’s request, is not automatically excluded from disclosure, as the Bank contended.
EYE’s appeal also relies on Board’s determinations in several cases that the deliberative process exemption must be “narrowly construed.” The Board wrote, “It cannot simply be used to withhold any information which has been the subject of internal discussion by staff of the Bank at whatever level.”
Further defining its thinking on the exemption,,the Board has drawn a distinction between factual and/or decisional information and deliberative information. And the Board in one case was unsympathetic to arguments that the information might be “sensitive.” It wrote that “just because information may be “sensitive” does not mean that it necessarily falls within the ‘deliberative’ exception….”
In applying its tests, the Board has sometimes agreed with the Committee and at other times has ordered that withheld documents be disclosed. In one matter, the Board told the Bank to release 10 of the 14 aide memoires for which Bank had involved the deliberative process exemption.
EYE’s appeal also contends that the Bank has applied an over-broad interpretation of the “provided in confidence” exemption.
Separately, EYE on Aug. 19 filed an appeal with the Board to about the substantial delays in the Bank’s handling this matter at both the request and appeals levels. At that point 11 months had passed since the Sept. 29, 2025, request for All aide memoires prepared in connection with P177814, the Pathways to Sustainable Livelihoods Project in Lesotho.”
EYE has written about this subject before:
In Unusual Move, the World Bank Issues Key Reports on Project in Mozambique, Sept. 22, 2026
World Bank Months Late in Replying to Request for Project Information, June 2, 2026
World Bank Interprets Access Policy to Protect Key Documents; Aide Memoires, Sept. 25, 2025
World Bank Appeals Board Issues Decisions Supporting Transparency, July 26, 2022
New Documents Reveal More About World Bank and Tanzanian Statistics Act, June 14, 2021
Appeals Board Says World Bank Improperly Withheld 102 Documents, June 2, 2021
