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Int'l Development
by mstandaert on September 15, 2006
I haven't been able to fully read all the pieces that have been coming out about critics of the World Bank's anti-corruption stances, but thought I'd include some pieces here while I wade through them. First from the Economist, a story about the World Bank's anti-corruption critics inside that institution.
The paper offers no shortage of principles to guide the bank's lending. But where those principles conflict, it is not clear which trumps which. For example, the bank believes that a free press, an army of busybodies (otherwise known as a thriving civil society) and an attentive parliament help to combat corruption. They raise the demand for honest government and provide a way to monitor it. Awkwardly, however, the bank's host for its annual meeting, Singapore, disproves this thesis. It is ranked the easiest place in the world to do business. But it is not nearly as friendly to the checks and balances of an open society. Earlier this month Singapore banned about 20 activists whom the bank had already approved for the meetings.
But in trying to stir the demand for reform in a borrowing country, the bank is constrained, at least in principle, by its articles of agreement, which prevent it from taking into account the "political character" of the regimes it deals with. As The Economist went to press, Hilary Benn, Britain's minister for international development, was preparing to give a speech gently admonishing the bank for trying to do everything.
That is not all Mr Benn is unhappy about. He feels that the bank should not ask countries to pursue the economic policies it favours as a condition for getting its money. Britain had promised the bank an extra £50m ($94m) if it agreed to let countries make their own decisions. The bank is much less prescriptive than it was, but Mr Benn said this week he is not yet ready to hand over the extra millions. The bank will not miss the money (its soft-loan arm can lend about $11 billion a year). It will not miss the rebuke either.
Also see the New York Times piece on Wolfowitz's campaign against corruption, and commentary on this at the Foreign Policy blog. Also one wonders if nepotism is one of the things they're going to be fighting against?
Who has Wolfowitz hired to carry out his anti-corruption program? Ironically, he tapped his political friend Suzanne Rich Folsom to become director of Institutional Integrity, the bank's anti-corruption unit, and brought a raft of assistants and advisors he knew from the Pentagon and White House to join him at the WB. This story has been covered here and there in the press for a while now, but I'm still amazed that it doesn't get more attention.
More at the Huffington Post and OpenDemocracy.
In other corruption related stories ...
*My close source is a bit worried that the government in Taiwan may fall, not that Chen with his own corruption issues doesn't deserve to go, but because of the turmoil this could cause in the country. It's a wonder how little there have been on the massive Taiwanese protests against Chen in the Western press, considering all the play other countries have gotten with similar presidential crisis. That coverage seems like it's starting to pick up, but over the past week of build-up it hasn't been very good. This turmoil may just be a small scare, but anecdotally I know of a few people who have been trying to immigrate to the U.S. because they think Taiwan is becoming more and more unstable. One of those people was working for the Foreign Ministry as well, so someone who would likely have a good feel for things there.
*Transparency International recently opened a new anti-corruption office in Azerbaijan.
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