Bloomberg quoted senior fellow Todd Moss in an article on IDA and the World Bank.
From the Article:
The World Bank’s fund for helping the poorest countries will receive $49.3 billion in funding from donor nations and other sources, the lender said today.
Funding over three years for the International Development Association, the unit that funds projects in 79 low-income countries including Haiti and Sub-Saharan African nations, will increase 18 percent compared to the total for the previous three years, the Washington-based lender said in a statement after a conference in Brussels. The new funds cover the period from July 2011 to June 2014, the World Bank said.
“This a very significant accomplishment at a time of tough budget cuts in many donor countries,” World Bank President Robert Zoellick said, speaking from Washington in a telephone conference with reporters before leaving for a visit to Zambia and Mali. “Many have stretched at a time of some economic pain at home.”
The bank declined to identify how much of the funding is coming from donor nations as compared to other sources, such as pre-payments and existing accounts. In the previous $41.6 billion IDA funding round in 2007, donor countries pledged $25.1 billion and the remaining $16.5 billion came from existing accounts and previous donations.
The World Bank said 51 countries contributed in this round of IDA funding, up from 45 countries in the previous round. The bank also pledged about $3 billion in resources from its other units, Zoellick said. Top 20The top 20 donors, as a group, increased their pledges, Zoellick said. In general, countries had smaller increases than they have had in the past, and some countries reduced their contribution while others gave funds for the first time, he said.
Zoellick declined to say who the largest donor was or how much individual countries contributed. The U.K. and the U.S. have been the largest contributors to the fund in past donation rounds.
Big donors should demand more public information from the World Bank about how it spends and keeps track of its funds, said Oxfam, a charity that works to alleviate poverty. “Donors must use this opportunity to flex their muscles and insist that the Bank show how and where its loans and grants make a difference to extreme poverty,” said Oxfam spokesperson Elizabeth Stuart.
The replenishment talks took place as most developed economies face increased scrutiny from investors. Europe is trying to contain a debt crisis that engulfed Greece and Ireland this year and Group of 20 nations have pledged to halve deficits by 2013.
“Every single major shareholder of IDA is facing a fiscal crunch,” said Todd Moss, senior fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, in an interview ahead of the funding conference. He said IDA is the “most important” financial institution for poor countries.