OneWorld.net (U.S.)

The World Bank is the world’s largest multilateral development bank and one of the most powerful international organisations, providing financing and promoting policy paths which affect the lives of hundreds of millions of people across the developing world. The official main goal of the institution is to reduce poverty world wide.

After Paul Wolfowitz was forced to leave and Robert Zoellick was selected as new president, the World Bank still faces a severe institutional and political crisis. The World Bank’s internal governance still shows a big democracy deficit. One emblematic example of that is the process for selecting the president of the World Bank – a decision which still rests with the White House.

But also regarding its policies, the institution is rapidly loosing legitimacy. It is criticised more strongly than ever by donor and borrower governments as well as civil society organisations and local communities for increasing rather than reducing poverty by imposing harmful economic policy conditions; for environmental devastation; for contributing to conflict; and for failing to respect local peoples’ rights. Evidence of harm from the ground has been corroborated by a series of official reviews of the Bank’s activities.

At the beginning of 2007, a coalition of European NGOs launched a campaign calling European governments to put pressure on the World Bank to undertake substantive reforms in the areas of economic policy reform and fossil fuel lending. The campaign statement, which has already been signed by 76 organisations, calls on European governments to “consider redirecting funding away from the Bank through other mechanisms which respect country ownership and take the necessary leadership in addressing climate change.”

You can cast your vote online to tell your development minister to act now and to seriously question and change World Bank policies, particularly concerning economic policy conditionality and fossil fuel funding. Change cannot wait.

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