This story was reported and written with Sasha Chavkin and Mike Hudson from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. The World Bank, created to fight poverty, has admitted that it’s failed to follow its own rules for protecting the poor people swept aside by dams, roads and other big projects it bankrolls. This conclusion, announced by the bank on Wednesday, amounts to a reversal of its previous efforts to downplay concerns raised by human rights activists and others working on behalf of the dispossessed -- people evicted from their land, sometimes in violent ways, to make way for World Bank-financed initiatives. It comes days after the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and The Huffington Post informed bank officials that the news outlets had found “systemic gaps” in the bank's protections for people who lose homes or jobs because of development projects. The World Bank, which is controlled by the United States and other member countries, had failed to respond to the news organizations’ repeated requests over the past several weeks for an interview with Jim Yong Kim, the president of the World Bank Group, the parent institution.