“CORRUPTION” was once a word that the World Bank did not use. Its staff spoke instead of “implicit taxes” or “rent-seeking behaviour” lest they be accused of meddling in politics. A decade ago James Wolfensohn, then the Bank's president, broke the taboo with a speech about the “cancer of corruption” and began a campaign to improve poor countries' governance. His successor, Paul Wolfowitz, has gone even further. Battling graft is his top priority.
CGD Vice President Dennis de Tray was cited in this Economist article about corruption and the World Bank.
From the article:
Corruption, they argue, is a complex and perennial problem. The virtues of rooting out graft need to be balanced against the Bank's goals of helping the poor. “It's just too easy to sit in Washington and say we should be tough on corruption,” argues Dennis de Tray, a former Bank director in Indonesia and Central Asia. “In the real world there are many shades of grey”.
