World Bank development in translation: Informality, evictions, and the discourses of urban transformation in Karachi

This thesis examines five developmental initiatives funded by the World Bank in Karachi, Pakistan between 2017 to the present date, focusing on the displacement and eviction of informal settlements and workers in areas targeted by those projects. Aiming to contribute to the literature on urban development and international developmentalism, it investigates how the Bank's discursive strategies and funding priorities, and the translation of these by on-ground local practitioners, facilitate evictions in the city even as both the institution and the state evade responsibility for rehabilitations. Following the historic and discursive production of "encroachments" in Karachi, the thesis examines the Bank's contemporary engagement with informality, escaping accountability for forced evictions as it prioritizes sustainable competitiveness in urban development. On the flip side is the state, with its own fractured notions of what development, translating Bank policy into implementation that displaces. Through critical discourse analysis of World Bank documentation, this study explores the Bank's developmental priorities and locates blame avoidance strategies within policy translation.