The World Bank

WORLD BANK: governments play an important role in development, but there is no simple set of rules telling them what to do.

Different organizations are formed worldwide but it is mostly their mandates that categorically define the role they play. Among the most recognized, organizations that follow under the control of United Nations get an upper hand and it’s particularly made possible by the powers and control these organizations possess. This article attempts to compare and contrast the United Nations Security Council with the World Bank drawing conclusions from their mandate, style of functioning, governance and organizational culture among the key elements considered. Although they have an international outlook, there are various features within the organizations that depict them as different while others reveal elements that they share and value in common.

Angry protesting, political upset, governments falling, privatization failing, and money lost are a few outcomes that influence the public opinion on the World Bank, and its involvement in many underdeveloped countries. While the World Bank claims that reducing poverty across the globe is its foremost priority, many opponents believe that it is responsible for increasing poverty. The World Bank is a multifaceted organization that loans money to government around the world for development.

The World Bank uses a multitude of corrupt policies and economic and social ordinances that ultimately harm those who are under them and more specifically the Third World. Despite initial intentions of positive social and economic change, the World Bank uses its influence as a powerful corporation to falsify the aid given to those who need it most.

Since its opening loan of $250 million to France for post-war reconstruction in 1947, the World Bank has always declared its two primary goals as to “end extreme poverty within a generation and boost shared prosperity” (World Bank, 2014). The World Bank is first and foremost a bank - a business – whose primary interest is in making money, and in this profit-first business model the Bank imposes upon the sovereignty of foreign countries by forgoing its own policies by violating human rights, causing environmental degradation and implementing policies involving conditionality on to all loaned funds. Much of the Global

The IMF and the World Bank’s policies–incorrect and brutal– doe not emanate from an active conspiracy, but have more to do with the economic actors’ individual interests (these actors’ opinions being able to prevail thanks to their political stature) and the ideology developed as a result. The book then states that the leaders and choice-makers of these two institutions truly believe in the rightfulness of their regulating and development policies. According to the author, the solution of the problem lies above all in the democratization process within the debated organizations, as their very credibility is at stake. The governments’ and their Ministers of Finance’s activities should be transparent, objective

The United Nations was founded upon the basic principles philosophy of collective security—the concept that any attack against any other country is equivalent to an attack on all other countries, whose task is to defend that country. Prior to the years following World War II, Korea and Vietnam were controlled by foreign powers, Japan in Korea and France in Vietnam; and once these major powers withdrew both Korea and Vietnam faced the involvement of an impending and neighboring Soviet Union. These two major international conflicts during the twentieth century can be compared and contrasted on four points: the background of the wars, the situation of United States in each war, and the situation during and results each war. Though separated by a decade and located in different areas, the Korean and Vietnam Wars were similar in that they were both embodiments of the crisis in which Free World nations acted on their beliefs of collective security against the Communist nations. (Source 1)

The bank has been criticized for giving loans to countries with corrupted government (Behar, 2012). Corruption is a major problem in developing countries. Millions of loans in financial assistance would be rendered ineffective if such countries were run by corrupted governance. Many World Bank’s projects have failed due to the corrupted government in these developing nations (Behar, 2012).

The three major international economic institutions are the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the World Trade Organization; this book mainly focuses on the IMF and the World Bank, due to the author’s first-hand experience with both institutions. The IMF, a public institution built as a guiding hand for economic stability around the world, has brought false

The World Bank is a multi-national organization that operates in over 180 countries. Barriers such as connectivity, cultural differences, time zones, knowledge levels, and resources available exist for World Bank because they have clients in so many different locations around the world. World Bank has a hierarchal structure with a centralized headquarters in Washington, D.C and several more independent branches. Due to the operations limited by independent branches, client interactions were limited, communications needed improvement, and important business meetings were limited by the difficulties and expenses of worldwide travel.

The World Bank exerts its economic means to provide developing countries with loans to help them reduce poverty and promote development. The World Bank focuses on Global South, especially Africa, offering “champion education” to “Africa’s fast-growing youth population” (World Bank, 2014). The loans support the policy implementation with adequate funds, giving young people more opportunities to access to education, offering universities more funds to maintain the quality of higher education, and attracting more talents to devote themselves in education career. However, the loans are with conditions. Only when the countries accept the conditions and obey the rules, formulating the policy based on the World Bank’s requirements and the ideas that the World Bank advocates, can they receive the funds assistant. This severely violates the sovereignty of the nation. From this view, the World Bank is acting as a dictator, pushing down its ideas, piloting in the

This essay will address the question of whether the World Bank’s Anti-Corruption policy can be improved through the adaption of a Political Economy Analysis (PEA) framework. Since John Wolfensohn, then President of the World Bank, addressed the ‘cancer of corruption’ as a major impediment to growth in 1996 the World Bank has adopted a mounting concern over corruption. Today, the Bank’s fixation on corruption incorporates concerns over ‘good governance’, particularly in underdeveloped countries. Corruption and governance are political issues by nature. Yet, scholars’ have criticized the Bank for their reform strategies for being based largely in economic considerations (Khan: 2002, Marquette: 2004, Forest and Wild: 2011). Since then, the World Bank employed a stakeholder approach to address the political dimension of creating ‘good’ governance. Yet, academics and policy makers agree the World Bank’s anti-corruption initiatives continue to reject the need to integrate politics into their work, as they continue to be based in economic rationalism and the technical approach to governance. I will observe this in the context of political pressure that governs the World Bank’s mandate. Then looking at corruption as a moral category with reference to Bukovansky (2006) which suggests that, in order to achieve ‘good governance’ a country must follow a set of prescribed liberal approaches in order to grow. Considering the failures of the current approach, I suggest that a PEA

From a Marxist’s standpoint, international economic Institutions have no advantages whatsoever. Chimni argues that the growing international institutions constitute an imperial global state in the making (Chimni, 2004). Chimni explains that creating a global state fulfills the interests of a transnational capitalist class within the international realm at the expense of the social classes in the developing and underdeveloped countries (Chimni, 2004). Chimni criticizes the institutions’ calls for cooperation and interdependence. He argues that institutions affect the sovereignty of states, leaving developing countries unable to control their domestic affairs (Chimni, 2004). He mentions that reforms are essential to face the capitalist dominance of international institutions. He concludes that with the help of a powerful global social movement, change is possible (Chimni, 2004).

Before zeroing in on the World Bank Cambodia Sub-project, a quick review of the World Bank Group (WBG), vis-a-vis its structure, mission’s statement, and criticisms would critical in analysing the project.

The financial institutions allocate financial aids to countries according to their criteria and how well their public institutes operate or perform. This leads to pressure on the global south, leading to governance conditionality which many countries are not so happy about it. For instance Kenya had been given five times aid without any result of progress. Until 2000 IMF bank actual withheld aid from them after a court hearing about the anti-corruption authority. The challenges that global south face is the need for good governance. (Glennie,J, 2008).