[PEN-L:8289] curbing the power of the World Bank...

[Robert Naiman <naimanr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Doug's posts on the Summers memo -- to the effect in the privacy of his own memo Summers was being honest about the logic of the institution he represented, and "we should face up to that" -- provoke me to pose the question: given that in fact this is a fair representation of what the World Bank is doing, what are we doing to curb the power and influence of the World Bank?

It seems to me that there are campaigns to block particular Bank projects, there are campaigns to force the Bank to adhere to its own environmental standards, and there is a fight going on about the Inspection Panel.

But no-one is campaigning to curb the power of the Bank, except insofar as the above campaigns can be understood as curbing the Bank's power.

This is particularly troubling given that something like 65% of Bank loans are now structural adjustment loans, that the Bank's loans in health care and education are tied to things like increased user fees and privatization, and that the movement of the Bank into lending in health care and education may be exacerbating the hard currency debt problems of developing countries, etc.

What can we do?

Kevin Danaher of Global Exchange suggests a campaign to get institutions to pledge that they will not purchase World Bank bonds. This seems like just the sort of thing that PEN-Lers could help with, concentrated as they are in universities, which are the logical starting place for such a campaign. What do PEN-lers say? How could we get this rolling?

-Robert Naiman

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Robert Naiman <naimanr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Preamble Center
1737 21st NW
Washington, DC 20009
phone: 202-265-3263
fax:   202-265-3647
http://www.preamble.org/
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