Rivers of Exile

Action against World Bank excessive intrusion September 14, 2006

Posted by Delilah in : General, Washington Consensus, World , trackback

Countries borrowing from the World Bank have long been frustrated by the level of intrusion from the Bank in forcing policy choices and development approaches down people’s throats. The poorer the country, the stronger and more pervasive the domination.

This is particularly true in some sub-Saharan African countries - where the Bank literally runs all aspects of the government, from the geographic distribution of health clinics to the design of school curricula and the amount of school fees. Without exception, African professionals dealing with the Bank, be they in government, civil society or the private sector - feel disrespected and diminished by such treatment - not to mention the frustration and despair at ever implementing their own vision for their own respective countries. With the increased - and effective - competition from the likes of the Gates and Clinton foundations tackling the biggest and most urgent issues, the Bank can only feel threatened.

So far, such complaints - inside and outside the Bank - have typically been met with attempts at insitutional reform (Jim Wolfenshon is to be credited for trying, at least) coupled with arrogant dismissal from the ranks. As countries stuck with Bank loans grow more confident in themselves and their own technical capacities increase, their professionals inside and outside government have learned to voice their frustrations and resist Bank impositions. However, as long as big contributors implicitly condoned the status quo by not exerting their own influence on the subject, nothing much was likely to change at all.

This new action by the UK is an interesting step in that regard. Holding up the UK contribution is definitely a good way to focus the minds.
To be continued.