Divide and conquer?
Sir, your article “Embattled Wolfowitz seeks more cash”, March 5, personalizes too much the issue, since in reality it is an embattled world that needs solutions. At this moment we can only hope that the donor countries will live up to their commitments and replenish the International Development Association (IDA) so as to allow the World Bank to do whatever it can to keep the heads of as many poor as possible out of the water. But, having said that, the fact is that there is also a world of needs for a World Bank (of knowledge and ideas) to act on behalf of the world at large, and this does usually create the conflicts that typically break the weakest links, namely the poor. For instance now when if we heed what the scientists tell us about the climate change we seem to need more than ever an institution that can, as neutral as possible, analyze and tell us in what green solutions the world should invest its scarce resources, this could indeed step on many donor toes. Imagine if for instance the World Bank came up with an analysis that said that hybrid cars, wind energy, and biofuels were either wasteful or harmful solutions, some would indeed be upset, but should the poor in Africa pay for that?
Could this signify that it is time to split up the World Bank into a global World Bank and an IDA World Bank? To do so would at least introduce some more clarity in the institution, which is sorely needed. When you mention that some board members challenged a “frustratingly vague” budget proposal introduced by Wolfowitz, I can only smile since this has obviously nothing to do with him. You put the ten best renowned corporate leaders of the world to budget among the thousands of operations, loans, grants, research projects, seminars and what-have you, and that evolve around the more than 200 development topics, where no one knows or even asks what are the ten things that work the best (to scale them up) or the ten worst (to shut them down), and I bet my last shirt they would also be equally vague. Vague is the nature of the beast, and tame it we must.
Could this signify that it is time to split up the World Bank into a global World Bank and an IDA World Bank? To do so would at least introduce some more clarity in the institution, which is sorely needed. When you mention that some board members challenged a “frustratingly vague” budget proposal introduced by Wolfowitz, I can only smile since this has obviously nothing to do with him. You put the ten best renowned corporate leaders of the world to budget among the thousands of operations, loans, grants, research projects, seminars and what-have you, and that evolve around the more than 200 development topics, where no one knows or even asks what are the ten things that work the best (to scale them up) or the ten worst (to shut them down), and I bet my last shirt they would also be equally vague. Vague is the nature of the beast, and tame it we must.
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