WB and IMF

Patrick Bond pbond at wn.apc.org
Thu May 25 11:33:52 PDT 2000



> From: "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." <rosserjb at jmu.edu>
> OK. Please list some specific projects or actions by
> the WB that have damaged less developed countries.

Comrade Barclay, how much time do we have here.

I broadly endorse the material that is on whirledbank.org, which Dennis has pointed to, as well as slew of recent (1998+) critical books specifically on the WB (Payer, Rich, Caulfield, George, Mihovic). But if you want to get into some original detail sharing, I've got a few from my 'hood which I've been playing a minor role in documenting:

big project loans: a) Kariba Dam, Zimbabwe/Zambia b) Lesotho Highlands Water Project

structural adjustment programmes: c) Zimbabwe

debt `relief': d) Mozambique, including conditionality on health, water, cashew nuts, etc

sectoral loans: e) Zimbabwe land f) Zimbabwe urban development g) Zimbabwe energy h) Zimbabwe health i) Zimbabwe education

policy advice: j) South Africa in virtually every area of social and economic policy k) Zimbabwe ditto

WB as `Knowledge Bank' (sic): l) South Africa

International Finance Corporation investments: m) South Africa privatised infrastructure, managed health care and Dominos Pizza (yup)

Pick a letter and I'll email over a paper or chapter I've drafted over the past two years, offlist, ok?

Then you can decide if the WB staff deployed in Southern Africa are good cops. Or killers.



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