About
the Author
David Shaman has been an advocate for transparency for
many years. In 1999, he co-founded B-SPAN, the World Bank's webcasting
station for development. As B-SPAN's principal architect, Shaman
spent six years producing unedited webcasts of internal Bank policy
dialogues and debates. During his tenure, B-SPAN disseminated more
than 700 webcasts on poverty reduction and sustainable development
issues to Bank staff and viewers in more than 150 countries.
The webcasting station, to Shaman's knowledge, is the only entity
among development, government, academic or private sector institutions
that provides a completely transparent and unedited window on internal
policy discussions. B-SPAN's model of uncensored Bank policy discussions
that were permanently archived became extremely popular. By 2004,
the system had experienced triple-digit growth during the two previous
years, was attracting more than 200,000 visitors annually and had
captured almost two percent of the Bank's entire Internet traffic.
In addition, B-SPAN became the institution's leading Internet provider
of video content and had an electronic mailing community of 18,000
subscribers - second largest in the Bank. Accolades for the initiative
came from all parts of the globe by viewers who believed B-SPAN
moved the Bank's culture of secrecy toward one of greater openness.
Among the ventures Shaman launched with B-SPAN were live webcasts
of major Bank events, interviews with leading figures in the field
of development and economics and webcasts of policy events from
outside the Bank.
Prior to managing the Bank's webcasting station, Shaman was the
communications manager of the Bank's Development Economics Research
Group on the Environment from 1993 to 2000. In 1999, he co-authored
Greening Industry: New Roles for Communities, Markets, and Governments
(Oxford University Press), a major World Bank policy report
on industrial pollution in the developing world. Greening
Industry has been translated into four languages. Throughout
the 1990s, he was involved in collaborative arrangements with developing
country officials to help governments analyze and address environmental
problems. He also developed and managed the New
Ideas in Pollution Regulation (NIPR) website. In 2000, an external
vendor hired by the Bank to assess its Internet program rated NIPR
as the institution's best overall website. Shaman has been the recipient
of the World Bank's 2000 Performance Award and World Bank Institute's
2004 Spot Award.
Before joining the Bank, Shaman worked in a number of communication
roles. He has served as a public relations consultant implementing
communication strategies that resulted in coverage in major news
outlets such as NBC, CNN, The New York Times and The Washington
Post. He has also served as a legislative aide to two members of
Congress and as a press secretary to a member of the New York City
Council. Shaman received a journalism degree from the University
of Maryland (1981) and has been a newspaper reporter with Newsday
and the Elizabeth (N.J.) Daily Journal.
Shaman lives in Washington, D. C. with his wife and two children.
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