World Bank: A success story

[dimpy.handa]

The World Bank investment policy consolidates the position of the corrupt, inefficient and antidemocratic regimes of many developing countries. The Bank has evinced willingness to deal directly with almost any government without sensitivity to their human rights record. Given that developing countries are both shareholders and clients in the Bank, the agencies are unlikely to admit that loans to a particular regime will not achieve any benefit until a reformed government achieves power. The negotiation process between the Bank and the regime is invariably closed and the circulation of Bank reports restricted to the participants. The poor are disenfranchised from the very institution supposed to support their development.

 

[swatiraohnlu]

The World Bank is one of five institutions created at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944. The International Monetary Fund, a related institution, is the second. Delegates from many countries attended the Bretton Woods Conference. The most powerful countries in attendance were the United States and United Kingdom, which dominated negotiations.

Although both are based in Washington, D.C., the World Bank is, by custom, headed by an American, while the IMF is led by a European.