On our own (World Bank) governance: The Annual Meetings Development Committee Communiqué

I must confess that I do not really understand how it gets produced. We sort of start out by pitching out a lot of issues to ourselves and then we go over to the other side and bat the balls back for about eleven continuous hours just so that we can later have a chance of fielding them again in our Board meetings six months later. It is hard to tell whether we are in a virtuous or a vicious circle or, if at the end of the day when we get some issues out of the loop, it is because we have adequately exhausted these issues or because they have just exhausted us.

Nonetheless in this unpleasantly volatile world we might find comfort in the thought that our communiqués provide an inspiring source of stability—as they always read the same.

Any readers who do not understand what I am talking about should not worry. The preparation of communiqués is like one of those strange initiation rites impossible to describe to anyone not part of them … and to most who are part of it.

Extract from Voice and Noise 2006