Ideas to Action:
Independent research for global prosperity
Last week representatives of 40 countries meeting in Potsdam, Germany endorsed the World Bank's proposal for a multi-billion-dollar Clean Technology Fund (CTF) to help developing countries meet their surging energy needs without accelerating climate change.
Senators Lugar and Bayh are again on the anticorruption warpath. Yesterday they issued a press release calling for "a Government Accounting Office (GAO) probe of the World Bank's anticorruption efforts." They want to make sure that the U.S.'s $950 million contribution to the International Development Association is not being "misspent and enriching corrupt foreign regimes." Certainly sounds reasonable, but is this really the right focus for a review of World Bank operations?
Suzanne Rich Folsom, the controversial head of the World Bank's internal anti-corruption unit, resigned yesterday to return to the private sector. With Ms. Folsom's departure almost all of Paul Wolfowitz's inner circle has now left the Bank. I expect that some of the Bank's critics will cast this turn of events as victory of the bank bureaucracy over the forces of good in a fight for truth, justice, the American way, and, most especially, zero corruption.
With my colleagues at the Center for Global Development, I extend hearty congratulations to Bob Zoellick for recruiting back to the World Bank Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala , the distinguished former minister of finance of Nigeria, as one of now three managing directors reporting to him. CGD supporters who don't know Dr.
A Washington Post editorial today ( A Fight Over Corruption ) says that the new report by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker on the effectiveness of the World Bank's anti-corruption department, (the Institutional Integrity Department or INT)) "reserved its toughest language for the bank bureaucracy itself." The editorial then quotes from the report:
Today the Volcker Commission released a report with a set of recommendations about how the World Bank can strengthen its anti-corruption procedures by reforming its Department of Institutional Integrity. This is an important and timely conversation and the report will no doubt receive a high level of attention. But it is equally important that the Bank does not put corruption ahead of its central task—the alleviation of poverty.
Yesterday Robert Zoellick was elected by unanimous vote by the Board of the World Bank to become its next president. He now assumes The Hardest Job in the World, as we called it in a 2005 CGD report to the then-incoming president, Paul Wolfowitz. Mr. Zoellick is an avid reader -- and absorbs ideas and issues like a sponge. This bodes well for the Bank and for Bank staff. Informal meetings he has had with officials around the world, activists, and Bank watchers in Washington's leading think tanks indicate Mr.
With any luck, the sad and strange saga of Paul Wolfowitz's tenure at the World Bank will enter its final chapter this week.
In Tuesday's editorial on "Mr. Wolfowitz and the Bank", The New York Times referred to three issues that need his leadership:
"giv[ing] more of a voice to less wealthy and poor countries;…find[ing] new ways to mobilize private sector financing; [and] addressing global challenges like epidemics, sustainable energy and post-conflict reconstruction."
Yesterday the World Bank released its 2006 review of the effectiveness of its operations (Annual Review of Development Effectiveness 2006: Getting Results). Among other findings, "perceived governance quality has not yet responded to large-scale public sector reforms." As shown in a chart on p.
Commentary Menu