TAPPING EUROPE FOR SOLUTIONS TO POVERTY. At a conference of economists in Paris, World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn searched for European thinkers who he hoped could offer new ideas after 20 years of utter trust in free-market forces, the Christian Science Monitor (p.6) reports. "Europe has a longer tradition of deeper concern for equity, and a different view of the role of the state," the World Bank's Chief Economist, Joseph Stiglitz, is quoted as saying.
For most of the past 20 years, developing countries that turned to the World Bank and the IMF for help were told to liberalize their economies, privatize public enterprises, balance their budgets, and allow capital to flow freely in and out of their markets, but when the Asian economies that had follow the advice fell victim to the crisis in 1997, economic analysts began to have their doubts.
The result is a new emphasis on the social context in which governments act, as they try to develop their countries, and that means that the World Bank now wants to pay more attention in the countries where it lends money to fighting corruption, strengthening the courts, ensuring social safety nets, and building the institutions of civil society, the piece says.