Chaotic place, poorly managed, unclear task assignments. Some people are doing close to nothing while others are working extremely hard. Rampant nepotism and cronyism.
Stagnant or unmotivated staff. I never saw people being fired for not pulling their weight. It was as if there were no rules for getting rid of underperforming employees as well as no rules for promoting the good ones. If you have a green card holder or a US citizen and you are here, shame on you.
Politics decides 90% of what is done, who is hired etc. Most who become permanent staff are well connected belonging to politically dominant classes in Latin America. Yes, lots of country mafias. Highly trained and well experienced who come by merit are not welcomed. Lots of insecure people feel their positions threatened. If you come here thinking this is an org with an honest and laudable mission such as 'improving lives' you are being naïve.
Inefficient use of budget. While the IDB advices to the client countries to spend their money efficiently, it doesn't practice what it preaches. There are rules that force each department to basically throw out of the window all the remaining budget at the end of the year to avoid losing their 'share of the pie' next year. The capital given to the IDB is tax payer money from a lot of very poor countries and yet this happens. If this is not hypocritical I don't know what is.
