A coalition of development experts, academics and aid agency workers has publicly criticised a new internet initiative to be launched by the World Bank, questioning its independence and accusing the bank of failing adequately to consult.

The bank's Global Development Gateway will provide a single internet portal to a selection of information about economic development for development agencies, aid donors and governments. It will be presented in prototype at the bank's annual meetings in Prague over the next two weeks.

But on Wednesday, a letter drafted by the Bretton Woods Project, the watchdog charity, and supported by several hundred development workers, was sent to the bank protesting against the plan.

The letter said the bank's plans were overambitious and endangered existing websites, and that the foundation set up to oversee the gateway was insufficiently independent of the bank and its member governments. Signatories to the letter included Frances Stewart, director of the International Development Centre at Oxford University, and Ann Pettifor, head of the debt relief campaign, Jubilee 2000.

Alex Wilks, co-ordinator of the Bretton Woods project, said the bank's role in making appointments relating to the global gateway, together with the leading role of governments in the 50 individual country gateways which will supplement the global version, had raised fears about official control over the portal and its content.

"Creating a nominally independent entity has not solved the acute accountability issues around the gateway - essentially an editorial activity similar to publishing newspapers," Mr Wilks said.

The World Bank said the criticisms were unfounded, and that it had consulted as widely as possible before setting the system up. "The foundation is currently merely a legal shell; all the details of its governance remain to be worked out," said Michael Potashnik, the director of the gateway at the World Bank.

"However, we can pledge that a civil society [pressure groups and aid charities] steering committee, should interested groups decide to organise one, will be an integral part of this process."

Mr Potashnik added that the gateway should "supplement and strengthen" existing initiatives rather than competing with them.

The gateway, which will cost $60m over the next three years, is part of the World Bank's increasing focus on providing "global public goods", in a move away from its traditional staple of funding large infrastructure projects in developing countries. James Wolfensohn, the bank's president, initiated the project last year and the bank has since carried out a series of consultations with aid charities and other interested organisations.