Few multinational organisations have suffered as much fierce criticism from campaigning groups in the past 20 years as the World Bank, the Washington-based lender to developing countries. And fewer - if any - have done as much to respond to it.

Efforts by the World Bank to incorporate the views of environmentalists and its other critics have enjoyed mixed success. The Bank is still the target of protests, such as those expected over the coming week in Prague at the annual meetings of the Bank and its sister organisation, the International Monetary Fund. Even groups that have worked with the Bank remain critical of it.

But increasingly, the private sector is beating a path to the Bank's door. According to Ian Johnson, the Bank vice-president responsible for relations with campaign groups, companies are seeking to draw on the Bank's experience with those in what it calls "civil society".

"The best companies in the next 20 to 30 years will be those that not only know how to manage their finances, but know how to relate to the societies in which they work," Mr Johnson says.

Indeed, although the Bank's efforts have not silenced critics, the history of its dealings with campaigners are instructive to multinational corporations whose reputations may depend on their behaviour in a far-flung part of the globe. Helped by the internet, Mr Johnson says campaign groups have the ability "to amplify local issues into global issues very quickly".

The Bank was not always so sensitive to the opinions of such groups - though, according to Bruce Rich, now senior attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund, it started to pretend it was in the early 1980s. "It was a Wizard of Oz operation; there was nothing behind it," he says.

But in 1983, when hearings were held by the House of Representatives, non-government groups began to use the US Congress as a lever to push reform.

The Bank's initial reaction was to treat the criticism as a matter of perceptions that had to be corrected. "This is the classical response of a big bureaucracy," says Mr Rich. "The IMF still thinks it's a matter of perception."

The second view that took hold, says Mr Rich, was that there were two types of protest groups: constructive and unconstructive. "Hidden in this is a valid concept," he says, but the best-informed groups are not necessarily the least aggressive.

The Bank's opening to protest groups was a slow one, and has gone through many phases, beginning in earnest in 1987 when Barber Conable, a former US lawmaker, took over as president. In the early 1990s the Bank introduced a more open information policy and encouraged the creation of an independent inspection panel to examine complaints over its performance.

Today's approach began in 1995, when James Wolfensohn took over at the Bank. From the outset, his attitude was different. "Wolfensohn created an atmosphere of being more open to [campaigners] and civil society and for that he deserves credit," says Mr Rich, a long-time critic of the Bank.

According to John Clark, principal social-development specialist at the Bank, and former head of Oxfam's campaign programmes, Mr Wolfensohn "insisted the Bank take critics at face value".

He says the Bank's strategy has five strands. It has:

* Expanded collaboration in operations, emphasising early involvement by civil society in project design;

* Engaged civil society in discussing strategies within each country;

* Begun a new disclosure policy making public a wider array of information;

* Established a regular dialogue on big policy issues such as environment and debt relief, replacing more informal consultations;

* Used its influence over borrowing governments to encourage greater tolerance of civil groups.

The Bank has also broadened considerably the range of groups it consults. It now regularly talks to trade unions, religious organisations, civic associations and other groups that shape local societies. "Now in nearly every country we have somebody whose sole job it is to work with local [groups]," says Mr Johnson.

The Bank produces semi-annual reviews of its activities with groups. It says more than 70 per cent of projects it approved last year involved interest groups or civil society, up from less than half only five years ago. It also provides direct grants to help some groups.

Yet greater incorporation of campaigners into the Bank's decision-making has not met with universal approval. It has complicated the already difficult process of managing the Bank by adding to the existing constituencies - which include borrowing and creditor governments and the financial markets, from where the Bank raises most of its funding.

Some borrowers, in particular, are worried. In 1997 there was a backlash on the Bank's 24-strong executive board, which represents member governments. Some directors feared that their policymaking prerogative was being usurped.

James Sheehan, a US academic, argues in a paper published by the free-market Cato Institute that the Bank has "appeased" its environmental critics, by including them increasingly as advisers and conduits for lending. Moreover, he argues that the system in which selected interest groups administer and receive Bank funds ensures there will be little accountability. He says this might undermine good government in developing countries.

Even the campaigners are unhappy. This is partly, as Mr Clark says, that as the Bank becomes more open, "it is an easier target for criticism". Yet that is not the whole story.

Critics say continuing loan controversies show the Bank often ignores its own internal rules. Many also claim that there is a large gap between the Bank's rhetoric and the reality.

Andrea Durbin, director of international programmes for Friends of the Earth in Washington, acknowledges there have been improvements in the way the Bank interacts with campaigners. But she adds: "The question is whether it matters, because we don't see a lot of changes in the way the Bank operates."

She says Indonesian non-governmental groups with which she is in contact claim the Bank pursues a "three I" strategy with groups: it invites them in for consultations, informs them of its plans, and then ignores them. She complains that many campaigners are suffering from "consultation fatigue", wondering whether the time-consuming contacts with the Bank are worth the effort

Mr Rich, too, is disappointed. He argues that many officials at the Bank "want to do the right thing" but are under pressure from borrowing governments to make loans with the minimum of conditions. "So it becomes a matter of leadership and that's where Wolfensohn comes in," he says. "Alas, after a promising start, I think he's failed."

Most disappointing of all, he says, Mr Wolfensohn has been unable to rid the Bank of its loan-approval culture, in which managers perceive that their interests are best served by getting as many loans approved by the board as possible.

Has the Bank made a huge effort only to come under more criticism than ever? The answer is probably "yes". But, as Mr Rich says, it probably had little choice.