October 26, 2009
Steve Berkman’s recent book, The World Bank and the Gods of Lending, argues that financial fraud in World Bank projects may be extremely common. Berkman visited CGD last week to present evidence supporting his controversial findings. Visiting fellow Bill Savedoff writes that the book is persuasive and disturbing. He urges for the preparation of a reliable estimate of the extent of such corruption by conducting performance audits on a random, representative sample of projects and extrapolating the results to the full portfolio.