News release: “The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors has endorsed a move that will make the Bank’s original financing instrument more effective and clear for governments, staff, and civil society organizations, the Bank announced today. The Bank has consolidated the policies and procedures governing Investment Financing, the main lending vehicle available to clients to support specific investments ranging from infrastructure to social safety nets to judicial reform. Investment Finance was the Bank’s original financing instrument for making loans for post-World War II reconstruction in Europe in the late 1940s. Over time, the lending policy has evolved, resulting in a maze of 30-some policy and procedure statements that have now been consolidated into a single coherent policy. The critical policies of procurement and environmental and social safeguards are on a separate track and are now undergoing public consultations…The new policy, Investment Lending Reform: Modernizing and Consolidating Operational Policies AND Procedures, retains the content of the previous operational policy and procedure statements, restating them in a way that is clear to clients, staff, and civil society.”