IFC Under Fire on Environment, Social Safeguards

February 11, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Carey L. Biron

WASHINGTON, Feb 08 (IPS) – Campaigners are seizing on a new internal audit of financial-market lending by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank arm that engages in private sector investment, pointing to unusually stark criticism of the institution’s commitment to due diligence.The report warns that the institution’s oversight mechanisms include no capability to assess whether that lending – which comprises at least 40 percent of IFC portfolios, valued at some 20 billion dollars – is helping or harming local communities and overall development indicators.

In response, on Friday five international watchdog organisations, including Oxfam International and the Center for International Environmental Law, collectively called for “a fundamental overhaul of World Bank lending to financial markets actors”.

“For the first time, we’ve had an official body say this is a fundamentally problematic way of operation, that the IFC is missing the entire point of what these policies are for,” Peter Chowla, coordinator of the U.K.-based Bretton Woods Project (BWP), a watchdog and one of the organisations calling for an overhaul, told IPS. “That puts a far larger onus on the IFC to respond effectively.”

Made public this week, the audit is the result of a year of research by the Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman (CAO), an independent body charged with response to complaints from communities affected by IFC and other World Bank Group projects. The document focuses on the institution’s use of “financial intermediaries” – third-party entities such as banks or microfinance groups that use IFC money to engage in development projects.

According to the CAO, “A large portion of IFC financing is currently channeled to private sector projects in developing countries and emerging markets through third party entities.”

The CAO and other analyses suggest this practice has risen in recent years for the IFC and for other multilateral institutions, public and private.

“The use of financial intermediaries was fairly well hidden over the past decade, but they’ve been used increasingly in recent years as both civil society and governments have become more focused on project transparency,” Stephanie Fried, executive director of the Ulu Foundation, which focuses on international financial flows, told IPS.

“Yet as we see a rise in the use of these opaque bodies, we also see the IFC moving away from due diligence requirements. It’s simpler, after all, and they don’t need to be so accountable.”

Fried calls the new report “shockingly candid”, and notes that its findings will have “tremendous implications for the way that global finance is done.”

Do no harm

The crux of the CAO’s findings is twofold. First, in important commitments further strengthened last year, the IFC’s current stated policy is that its investments will not only “do no harm” but that they will actively “do good”, meaning improve development outcomes.

Second, in projects in which the institution is working through a financial intermediary, the IFC requires that entity to set up a system, known as an ESMS, aimed at ensuring that stringent environmental and social safeguards (“do no harm”) are met. However, while the IFC does make certain that the ESMS is in place, it does not engage in further analysis of the effects of this system on the ground – leaving that responsibility to the intermediary.

The CAO characterises this set-up as a “box-ticking exercise”, and warns that the mere creation of the system could become the end result, rather than enhancing environmental and social safeguards on the ground.

In a formal response, the IFC management does not deny that this is the way the system is currently constituted.

“IFC does not evaluate all information at the sub-client” level, the response reads, referring to project implementers below the financial intermediaries. “We do not consider this necessary or efficient,” as the intent is to have the intermediaries “manage this” through the ESMS.

The response also notes that IFC does “expect our (financial intermediary) partners to maintain all the requisite information about all their sub-clients … and this is evaluated by IFC as part of our on-going supervision process.”

Yet according to the CAO findings, BWP’s Chowla points out, even this system appears to break down fairly often, as in 35 percent of cases the IFC reportedly is unable to verify that its direct partners have implemented these safeguards.

Perhaps most damning in this regard, some 60 percent of “sub-clients” were found to have failed to improve their environment and social practices following IFC investment – which, CAO notes, “is where IFC seeks to really have an impact”.

Other models

According to a statement sent to IPS from the IFC’s Washington headquarters, the institution’s use of financial intermediaries allows it to provide access to finance for millions of individuals and micro, small and medium enterprises that the IFC would otherwise not be able to reach directly.

“IFC focuses on helping our (financial intermediary) clients improve their capacity to assess and manage the environmental and social risks inherent in their own financing activities – in line with IFC’s Sustainability Framework,” the statement says. “As the CAO report noted, nearly all of our clients comply with these standards.”

Armed with the new audit findings, however, campaigners are stepping up criticism of the Sustainability Framework itself. This is particularly important given that the World Bank recently began a widely watched reassessment of its environment and social safeguards, for which some worry that the IFC Sustainably Framework could act as a model.

“The World Bank has made it quite clear that it wants to streamline the safeguards process, to use more country systems to measure compliance,” BWP’s Chowla says.

“But we need to see whether they will take on board the message that using country systems does not mean being ignorant of results – that they still need to be accountable for results.”

Indeed, other due diligence models do exist. Stephanie Fried points particularly to those used by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC).

“Unlike IFC, the ADB and OPIC have insisted on maintaining responsibility for ensuring that things are being done responsibly under their investments, looking not only at the clients to whom they’re giving cash but also at the projects on the ground,” Fried says.

“That’s night and day compared to the IFC. We need to see compliance with the ‘do no harm’ mandate, and it appears that would be a complete redoing of the way in which the IFC is operating at the moment.”

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Development, Economy, Finance, Report Tagged With: ,

World Bank Unmoved on Auditor’s Criticism of Forest Policy

February 6, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Carey L. Biron

WASHINGTON, Feb 06 (IPS) – Officials at the World Bank are forcefully rejecting a new internal evaluation that is highly critical of the institution’s decade-long forest policy, expressing their “strong disagreement” with some assertions in the report.The assessment, written by the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG), the World Bank Group’s auditor, warns that expectations for poverty reduction as envisioned in the bank’s 2002 Forest Strategy “have not yet been met”. The report is particularly critical of the bank’s use of mass-scale logging concessions as a forest-management strategy and of a lack of projects that promote community involvement in the oversight of forests.

While the full IEG report has not yet been made public, draft copies of both the report and management responses were scheduled to be discussed at the bank’s Washington headquarters on Monday. (Leaked copies of both documents can be found here and here.)

The draft response from the bank’s management warns that the audit “contains a number of inaccuracies and misleading assertions that are based on generalizations about the forest sector rather than on an evaluation of the (World Bank Group’s) own work in this sector.”

In addition to expressing frustration with the IEG’s research methodology, the bank’s responses are particularly vociferous on the charge that its forest governance reforms – particularly regarding concessions – may not have led to sustainable and inclusive development.

The management warns that bank concession policies should not be looked at outside of their comprehensive context as they constitute “one part of a suite of reforms”, and that “an extensive body of literature” already exists on concession reforms, for which further re-appraisals would offer “little added value”.

In addition, the bank says that the IEG missed out on some particularly important reforms, such as a new requirement mandating third-party verification of sustainable forest management prior to any bank investment. Nor does the evaluation substantively explore the contributions of a bank initiative called the External Advisory Group on Forests, aimed at offering monitoring and oversight of the bank’s forest investments.

Both the frankness of the IEG report and the force with which the World Bank management have responded have surprised some observers.

“The evaluation was surprisingly forthright, but it’s important to realise that this issue is particularly touchy as the bank attempts to position itself as a major player in responding to global climate change,” Joshua Lichtenstein, forest programme manager with the Bank Information Center, a Washington watchdog, told IPS.

“The corollary here, however, is that the bank’s approach of focusing on industrial timber concessions doesn’t appear to have worked. While there’s been some progress in improving the legal framework, the IEG is saying that those programmes have led neither to sustainable, inclusive economic development nor to decreases in deforestation or sustainable use of forests.”

Centrality of concessions

As put in place in 2002, the World Bank’s Forest Strategy was aimed at both poverty alleviation and the safeguarding of local environments.

One important component of this new approach is the use of industrial logging, for which the 2002 strategy lifted a previous ban. By focusing instead on reforms such as increased management and certification activities, the policy aims at providing both local employment and national-level revenues.

The IEG evaluation, however, is clear in its view that this approach does not appear to have delivered results.

“We’re in no way opposing World Bank involvement in the forest sector – indeed, the bank has lots of small, community-driven development projects that are successful,” Lichtenstein says.

“But that’s kind of the point: there are other models, good alternatives, available, and the bank now needs to give up on this big industrial logging concession model. That was clearly important and worth trying, but it hasn’t panned out.”

By inserting itself in the logging sector in tropical forests, the World Bank had hoped it could bring its good offices to bear on an already existing industry and make it better. Thus, while the bank is not directly financing these companies, it is providing the legal and policy framework to make the sector function in its current form.

Yet some argue that the bank’s involvement has made certain situations worse, including pushing industrial logging operations into remaining primary rainforests.

“The allocation of large logging concessions, millions of hectares, to mostly foreign companies is still the prevailing model in many countries in the Congo Basin to manage forests,” Susanne Breitkopf, a Washington-based senior political adviser on forest and climate with Greenpeace International, told IPS, referring to the vast tropical rainforests that cover six countries in Central Africa.

“That clashes with local use by communities, and economically the local communities are not benefitting from this. As it turns out, these are often low-paid, low-quality jobs without contracts. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, we found that over time local communities are often poorer than when the companies arrive.”

There have also been allegations of fraud and illegal activity. In 2010, a European Union-funded report on logging in the Congo Basin found that nearly all major companies in the sector were involved in illegal activities, including logging outside of legal limits, non-payment of taxes and fraud.

Meanwhile, many have complained that community forestry programmes in these areas have been either an afterthought or entirely absent. On the issue of participatory forest management, the new IEG assessment suggests that the bank is “neglecting” the informal sector.

In response, the bank agrees that “Effective community participation is essential for improving the management of protected areas … (but questions) the evaluative basis for IEG’s conclusions that the Bank is not already doing this.”

Reassessment opportunity

“The IEG report is a very good starting point,” Breitkopf says, “offering a great opportunity for the bank to seriously reassess its approach and develop new priorities in land rights, livelihoods and protection of ecological systems, especially with regard to the role that forests are playing in protecting us from devastating climate change.”

Yet she is pessimistic that the new evaluation will lead to significant change. She also notes that the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank Group’s private sector arm, currently in early talks with a French timber company called Rougier, is currently contemplating re-engagement with industrial logging in the Congo Basin for the first time in three decades.

“Unfortunately, even as the evidence has increasingly mounted over the years, this has not been taken into account,” Breitkopf says. “From what we’ve heard from management, there still seems to be a resistance towards the recommendations from the IEG. And frankly, we don’t understand this, given that this is such a good chance to find better solutions.”

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Environment, Featured, Finance, Politics Tagged With: ,

World Bank Releases Draft Strategy for Myanmar

August 18, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Carey L. Biron

WASHINGTON, Aug 17 2012 (IPS) – Following on calls by civil society, the World Bank has released a draft summary framework for its re-engagement with Myanmar over the next year and a half. The formal interim strategy is slated to be ready by the end of October.

At the beginning of August, the World Bank, along with the Asian Development Bank, reopened offices in Yangon, following more than a year of widely watched though still disputed political and social reforms in the country. This marks the first formal engagement between the World Bank and Myanmar, also known as Burma, in 25 years, as well as the first ever entry of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank Group’s private-sector arm.

Already the bank has pledged an 85-million-dollar loan, also expected for approval in October, alongside a plan to restructure Myanmar’s debt, worth some 400 million dollars.

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Now, the bank has released a draft summary of what is formally known as an interim strategy note (ISN), “intended to help inform ongoing consultations on the draft ISN”. But the move comes following urging by local and international NGOs and amidst ongoing complaints that the bank has not engaged in adequate consultation with local communities.

Indeed, there is still no local-language version of the ISN, though the bank says that this is currently under preparation.

“To date, local organisations and communities have felt the World Bank’s approach is non-inclusive, sparse on details, lacks transparency and, most worrisome, does not solicit input from the organisations and communities most affected by conflict and development to inform their decision-making process,” Jennifer Quigley, with the U.S. Campaign for Burma, based here, told IPS.

Just prior to the ISN release, four dozen Myanmarese NGOs sent a letter to the World Bank’s headquarters here in Washington, expressing their anxiety that “the Bank’s reengagement activities in our country … have been rushed, secretive and top-down.”

The letter’s writers note having “initiated discussions” with the bank and others since early this year and admit that the current situation of flux and reform “presents opportunities for the World Bank to practice good governance”. But they also characterise the ISN design process as “flawed”.

“While there have been some informal meetings with World Bank staff and some civil society networks … there was never any mention of the ISN, let alone formal consultations,” the letter states.

“[N]o consultation approach, consultation materials, guide questions, location or timeline were ever disclosed. The outcomes of the consultation and the draft ISN are not even posted online.”

This last point has now been rectified, and the bank is openly requesting emailed reactions to the draft ISN.

“The World Bank is and has been consulting widely,” the bank’s Chisako Fukuda told IPS.

“From the ongoing consultations on the draft ISN, we have already heard important views from a range of people in Myanmar, from government, civil society, local and international NGOs working on Myanmar, development partners, U.N. agencies and the private sector, and we look forward to further discussion.”

For their part, the NGO representatives offered a series of detailed suggestions to bank officials, both with regard to how to structure a stronger consultation process and on how to safeguard its re-entry into Myanmar.

These latter include a spectrum of economic, environmental and human rights-related protections based on Myanmar’s “history of rights abuses and corruption … particularly in relation to infrastructure projects, coupled with the country’s history of economic isolation”.

Local complexities

According to the draft ISN, much of the bank’s initial work over the year and a half will revolve around assessments, evaluations and capacity-building, readying the ground for a full country programme to follow.

The document also includes a pointed recommendation to “Move slowly and scale up gradually; invest in developing government’s implementation capacity and fiduciary/safeguard systems”, though this warning may be complicated by a separate reference to “generating quick and tangible impacts in people’s daily lives”.

Perhaps the most contentious section of the ISN will be the bank’s plan to “support the peace process in border areas through community-driven development programs to promote the recovery of conflict-affected communities”. According to Pamela Cox, World Bank vice-president for East Asia and Pacific, in a video released this week, this aspect of the bank’s proposed work plan would receive about five million dollars in funding.

While a focus on these communities is undeniably critical, their engagement is also the most complicated. It is here that locals are most marginalised from the reforms process in Myanmar, most alienated from the state and most suspicious of “development”, often seeing such projects as thinly veiled attempts to take over their resource-rich lands.

In late July, a network of ethnic Karen community-based organisations released a statement criticising the Norway-led Myanmar Peace Support Initiative (MPSI), a high-level project working to assist in negotiating peaceful settlements among the ethnic conflicts still raging in several of Myanmar’s border regions. (In June, the World Bank had pledged to support Norway’s efforts.)

Worryingly, the Karen criticisms sound strikingly similar to those voiced more recently on the World Bank’s ISN design process, decrying the effects of a “lack of transparency and community involvement” in the MPSI.

“Given those problems, we ask MPSI and other proponents of donor-driven peace funds not to undermine our peace process, but rather to move to a more inclusive and transparent process,” the letter stated.

“MPSI should not take shortcuts or sow division within our leadership and our community in a bid to rush the deployment of funds. We understand your sense of urgency, but this process is too fragile to easily survive major mistakes that can be avoided.”

Some groups have recently voiced concerns that international groups, partnering with the government, could effectively squeeze out community-led initiatives in the border areas.

“If the World Bank goes through the government, there are many questions that we need to ask – for example, will only registered groups get opportunities?” Paul Sein Twa, with the Karen Environmental and Social Action Network and one of the lead writers of the recent letter to the World Bank, told the Democratic Voice of Burma, a news website, last week.

“We would encourage them to see many of the unregistered and local groups working in the border regions as well. If the INGOs don’t understand the issues on the ground, there could be many problems.”

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Asia, Development, Featured, Finance Tagged With: ,

World Bank Calibrating its Measurement of Sustainability

May 26, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Emilio Godoy *

MEXICO CITY, May 26, 2011 (Tierramérica) – The World Bank is working to update the mechanisms it uses to measure the effects of the financing it provides, particularly in environmental and social terms, now that it is gearing up to administer the new Green Climate Fund.

"The Bank is working to deepen the measurement of impacts," not only "the outcomes associated with a project, but also its long-term effects, such as impacts on health, ecosystems or the quality of life of the population," Gustavo Saltiel, the director of sustainable development for the World Bank in Mexico, told Tierramérica.

The World Bank is one of the leading financers of environmental projects in Mexico, as well as projects to combat climate change since 2009.

Since 1999, the multilateral institution has disbursed 672 million dollars in loans for 43 projects in Mexico aimed at developing the low-carbon economy, energy efficiency, renewable energies, sustainable transportation, and improved air quality.

But the results of these projects and the transparency with which these funds are used by the Mexican authorities have been questioned by civil society organisations.

The World Bank has established safeguard policies to "promote socially and environmentally sustainable approaches to development as well as to ensure that Bank operations do not harm people and the environment," according to its website.

These safeguard policies include the Bank’s policy on environmental assessment of loan proposals and the corresponding safeguards regarding cultural property, disputed areas, forestry, indigenous peoples, international waterways, involuntary resettlement, natural habitats, pest management and safety of dams.

Evaluations of these policies "have demonstrated the poor work done (by the Bank) in monitoring the execution of measures to mitigate social and environmental risks," Vince McElhinny of the non-governmental Bank Information Center, based in Washington, told Tierramérica.

McElhinny was referring to an assessment by the Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group of the performance of the International Finance Corporation, the arm of the World Bank responsible for financing private sector projects.

The report "Assessing International Finance Corporation Poverty Focus and Results", released on May 3, found that less than half of the projects evaluated included evidence of poverty and distributional aspects in project design, consideration of the characteristics of intended beneficiaries, or mechanisms to track impact.

The Independent Evaluation Group, established by the World Bank itself to assess its operations, stated in its recommendations that "the greater the number of poverty characteristics a project addresses, the greater the likelihood is of achieving positive outcomes."

Commenting on the report, Adriana Gómez, communications coordinator for the International Finance Corporation, recognised that "we haven’t been consistent in establishing in advance the expected impact of our projects on poverty reduction."

"From now on, it will be fundamental for the Corporation to better articulate the dimensions related to the poverty reduction impact of its projects. The Corporation is working towards the development of goals for social impact and access to services in sectors such as health and climate change," she noted.

On the other hand, for the Bank’s loans to low- and middle-income countries, indicators are established in connection with the goals set. "In general, this system makes it possible to evaluate progress, and in cases where it is deemed that a goal has not been met, corrective mechanisms are discussed with the counterparts in the corresponding government," explained Saltiel.

McElhinny believes the bank will "increasingly depend on the countries’ own systems for monitoring and evaluating investments."

"There is no way to know whether or not this process will strengthen the Bank’s reputation with regard to results. But if the safeguards are weakened and this is not compensated by strengthened capacity on the part of the beneficiary countries, the result could be decreased accountability," he added. .

One key aspect will be addressed this year through a process focused on the energy sector.

As part of the World Bank reform process, the Board of Executive Directors must discuss and publish the final version of its new energy sector strategy, which was submitted to public consultation in 2010.

Thirteen non-governmental organisations in the Americas recommended including the rights of indigenous communities and placing emphasis on clean and renewable energies and procedures to guarantee transparency in the design, execution and evaluation of projects.

"The members of the Board of Executive Directors Committee on Development Effectiveness agreed on the need for more time to review the document in detail," World Bank spokesman Roger Morier told Tierramérica. This has led to postponing the release of the energy policy, a key document given its links to climate change.

At the 16th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 16), held in Mexico in December 2010, an agreement was reached to establish a Green Climate Fund, with a commitment from rich countries to deliver 30 billion dollars in financing by 2012 and 100 billion annually by 2020.

The money will be allocated to poor countries to help them adapt to the impacts of climate change and develop low-carbon economies. The World Bank will administer the Fund for the first three years in accordance with the standards of the Convention.

The Transitional Committee tasked with designing the Green Climate Fund – made up of 15 members from developed countries and 25 from developing countries – established its general working arrangements and a work plan at its first meeting in late April.

*This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2011.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Development, Economy, Environment, Report Tagged With: ,

Despite Reforms, Whistleblowers at Development Banks Face Retaliation

March 8, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Charles Davis

WASHINGTON, Mar 8, 2011 (IPS) – Multilateral lending institutions – like the governments they serve – are ostensibly committed to the values of transparency and accountability. But more often than not, insiders who blow the whistle on waste, fraud and abuse at institutions like the World Bank are retaliated against, not rewarded, and typically find themselves out of a job for daring to speak out about wrongdoing.

It’s not supposed to be that way, of course.

In June 2008, the World Bank issued what it described as a "strengthened" whistleblowing policy "designed to encourage staff to report misconduct" through a number of internal channels.

"This policy sends an unambiguous message that retaliation against whistleblowers will not be tolerated," Hasan Tuluy, the Bank’s vice president for human resources, said at the time.

The move came little over a year after Paul Wolfowitz, one of the key architects of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, resigned in disgrace as president of the World Bank after numerous whistleblowers exposed incident after incident of corruption during his tumultuous two-year tenure, most notably his giving a massive 35.5 percent raise – or 47,700 dollars – to a woman with whom he was romantically involved.

Whistleblowers also exposed that Wolfowitz had covered up the near-shooting death of an employee in Iraq, after he had moved to expand the bank’s lending in the war-torn country in violation of its own policies. They also revealed that he was strictly curtailing the bank’s promotion of family planning services in developing countries, in keeping with the George W. Bush administration’s conservative social policies.

Wolfowitz in turn launched a series of investigations aimed at discovering who was leaking the politically damaging material.

But while whistleblowers are better off on paper since then – the Asian Development Bank implemented a strengthened policy in 2009 purportedly aimed at guarding them against retaliation, as did the Inter-American Development Bank in 2010 – Beatrice Edwards, a former World Bank employee now with the Government Accountability Project (GAP), told IPS that little has changed in practice.

"All the policies are in place," says Edwards, "but the implementation of the policies is the problem."

And that’s evidenced by the number of whistleblowers who continue to reach out to GAP with stories of retaliation after they tried to live up to their institutions’ stated values.

"We are not finding these new policies to be effective," says Edwards. Whistleblowers who reach out to GAP have usually "been subjected to some form of harassment", she says. "And when they get to us, they’re already pretty far down the road to termination, which is often the end result."

That retaliation – and termination – remains a fact of life for whistleblowers is in large part because the World Bank and other multilateral lending institutions enjoy a sort of diplomatic immunity, their employees governed not by the laws of the countries in which they operate, but by a "Conflict Resolution System" that critics say is influenced more by political considerations than a sense of justice.

Officials at the World Bank did not return an IPS request for comment.

"The internal administrative justice systems at the banks are dysfunctional and lack impartiality," says Edwards, "especially for whistleblowers who have embarrassed the banks."

Though internal bodies such as the World Bank’s Office of Ethics and Business Conduct are tasked with protecting whistleblowers, they’re ultimately still in the service of the institution – and of management, which is often the subject of the very leaks and accusations of unethical behaviour that are being investigated.

Indeed, while the administrative justice system is supposed to protect whistleblowers from retaliation, a review of cases at the World Bank between 2000 and 2008 found that 85 percent of those who were found to be unjustifiably terminated for speaking out were never actually reinstated.

And the situation hasn’t improved much since 2008, despite whistleblowers time and again exposing massive waste – and outright corruption – at multilateral lending institutions. But then maybe that’s the problem.

As GAP’s Edwards points out, multilateral lending institutions would prefer to keep news of corruption from reaching the outside – to the publics they serve – where it could embarrass both their leadership and host governments.

And history shows that "if high-level officials in the borrowing country are involved, Bank management may back down," says Edwards. "With a whistleblower in the process, it is much harder for Bank management to conceal corruption that is politically inconvenient to expose."

That was certainly the case with a natural gas pipeline project in Peru. After already receiving a 73-million-dollar loan from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), journalist Kelly Hearn revealed last year in The Washington Times that bank officials lent the project – owned by a consortium of companies including Texas petroleum giant Hunt Oil – another 400 million dollars, despite whistleblowers reporting that the project had developed a series of leaks, and had in fact been built using uncertified welders.

When problems with the project were confirmed in an IDB- commissioned report, management decided to go ahead with the loan anyway – and to keep the report from being made public "in light of objections expressed" by the consortium.

Bank officials have denied wrongdoing.

If the past is any indication, though, the whistleblowers who revealed the problems with the Peru pipeline risk derailing their careers if their identities become known, despite the new protections they enjoy from retaliation – on paper. And that’s why their advocates say more meaningful reforms are necessary to protect them, beginning with the internal review process.

"Management dominates and manipulates these processes," says Edwards.

She advocates creating an independent, third-party arbitration process that can assess whistleblowers’ claims and whether action taken against them was retaliatory in nature.

More broadly, though, "the internal administrative justice systems at the banks must be reformed so that they cannot operate as the Kangaroo Courts that they can often be now", she said.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2011.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Economy, Featured, Finance, Transparency Tagged With: , ,

AFRICA: World Bank Identifies Five Poor States as "Growth Poles"

March 7, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Nastasya Tay

JOHANNESBURG, Mar 7, 2011 (IPS) – Africa faces an unprecedented opportunity to transform itself, says the World Bank. Its new strategy for the continent aims to leverage growing South-South investment to ensure more inclusive development, while identifying five poor states as "Growth Poles".

The Bank says its new plan will prioritise employment and competitiveness, while also addressing the problems that make African countries particularly vulnerable to disaster, disease and climate change.

Until the global economic crisis, economic growth on the continent was averaging five percent a year for a decade. But, as the World Bank’s new strategy acknowledges, African countries have continued to face persistent, long-term development challenges.

Low levels of private investment and human capital, alongside weak governance, remain key obstacles to the continent’s development efforts, noted Obiageli Ezekwesili, vice president of the World Bank for the Africa region.

Furthermore, insufficient increases in productive formal employment, a massive infrastructure deficit, and the risks that come with climate change all add to Africa’s woes.

Political backlash against foreign aid, as well as austerity measures in developed countries, mean the continent will receive less financial assistance than promised. And marginalised groups – women and the chronically impoverished – will feel the gap the most, Ezekwesili stated at the Bank’s strategy launch on Mar 3.

"Africa’s Future and the World Bank’s Support to It", the Bank’s new plan for the continent, calls for intervention in three key areas: encouraging competitiveness, mitigating vulnerability and building the capacity for improved governance.

The strategy aims to restructure the bank’s approach to the continent, redefining Africa as "an investment proposition" to attract private finance, especially from emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil.

In a departure from the Africa Action Plan (AAP) – the bank’s previous regional strategy document – the new plan is the culmination of a year-long consultation process that surveyed 1,000 people across Africa and 400 people online.

The World Bank learned its lessons from the AAP experience, Ezekwesili admitted. "Previously, even though there was a level of consultation, it was not adequate."

Those surveyed identified poor governance as the main challenge for the continent’s development, attributing deficiencies in infrastructure provision and social services to corruption and the lack of public sector capacity to manage resources.

The World Bank regards political instability; the proliferation of fragile states across the continent; and resource-rich countries afflicted by widespread corruption and civil conflict as exacerbating governance challenges.

The Bank’s plan is based on an ambitious foundation to develop governance and public sector capacity, by increasing citizens’ access to information through supporting monitoring and expenditure tracking surveys by non- state actors.

"We will focus on both the supply side and the demand side of governance," declared Ezekwesili.

"On the demand side, our strategy will be to strengthen citizens’ voice using instruments of social accountability and we will exploit the use of ICT (information and communication technologies) to provide innovative ways for citizens to demand results."

The strategy aims to help countries diversify their economies and generate jobs through harnessing private sector growth, especially for the estimated seven to 10 million young people who enter the labour force on the continent every year.

Attention is given to technical skills development, the agricultural sector and scaling up small-scale entrepreneurs in strategic sectors.

The plan includes the development of several "Growth Poles" to support urban development through deploying "a critical mass of reforms, infrastructure investments and skill-building on the industries and locations of highest potential".

The Bank is planning "Growth Poles" in Madagascar, Cameroon, Mozambique, The Gambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Emphasis is placed on government interventions in industries which have a latent competitive advantage, as well as those that seek to create a less constrained business environment.

The second pillar of the Bank’s strategy focuses on mitigating the effects of macroeconomic shocks, health shocks, natural disasters and the consequences of conflict and political violence.

The plan suggests more space for social safety nets that can be rapidly scaled up in the face of increased hardship. It also envisions broader public health interventions, as well as "insurance-like mechanisms" and support for private healthcare to boost delivery capacity.

In response to climate change, the World Bank plan identifies cost-effective measures for adaptation, prioritising the sustainable management of existing assets, such as fresh water, fisheries, forests and wetlands.

The Bank aims to implement its new strategy predominantly through partnerships, knowledge development and finance, emphasising a shift in priorities from financing instruments to public-private dialogue and strengthening regional structures like the African Development Bank.

Ezekwesili stressed the need for World Bank interventions to complement national policies. She believes national governments should take responsibility for their fiscal and policy choices.

The strategy will inform the Bank’s engagement with the continent over the next 10 years, as well as its affiliated development and financial institutions.

Ezekwesili concluded that, through strategic selectivity, the strategy must be implemented "in order to deliver impact for the citizens of Africa, for whom the primary responsibility to deliver results lie with their own governments".

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2011.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Africa, Development, Featured, Trade Tagged With:

World Bank Extends Food Crisis Fund

October 20, 2010 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Matthew O. Berger and Peter Boaz

WASHINGTON, Oct 20, 2010 (IPS) – Amidst fears of a recurring food crisis, the World Bank has reactivated its Global Food Crisis Response Programme (GFRP), dedicating up to 760 million dollars to countries at risk of food price volatility.

In announcing the programme’s extension, World Bank President Robert Zoellick cited "growing concern among countries about continuing volatility and uncertainty in food markets".

The programme, equipped with a wide array of options for food crisis response, is expected to enable the World Bank to respond more quickly if countries are facing dangerous prices spikes.

"World food price volatility remains significant and, in some countries, the volatility is adding to already higher local food prices due to other factors such as adverse weather," Zoellick said.

The Bank’s decision follows a number of disquieting indicators that food prices could reach the dangerous levels of 2007 to 2008, when riots broke out in several hunger- stricken countries and the number of people suffering from hunger reached record highs.

"We do expect high volatility in food prices to continue until at least 2015, so reactivating the Bank’s food crisis fund means we’re ready to help countries calling for assistance," said World Bank Managing Director Ngozi Okonjo- Iweala.

The GFRP was originally launched in May 2008 and, to date, has conducted 1.2 billion dollars worth of assistance operations, reaching 35 countries, especially in the most affected regions in Africa and Asia, according to the Bank. It says that external donors have also funded an additional 200 million dollars of operations.

The ways in which countries may choose to deploy funds include support for local food production such as supplying seeds and fertiliser or improving irrigation, social safety net programmes, or budget support to offset tariff reductions.

The agricultural aspects of the programme have reached 5.9 million households while the social protection programmes have reached over 5.6 million people, said Mark Cackler, manager of the Bank’s Agriculture and Rural Development Department.

"In the last two years the GFRP has been effective at catalyzing and targeting funding for food security and agriculture at a critical time," Cackler told IPS in an email, citing concern over food price volatility as the reason for extending the programme.

Not new money

The programme is not an extra fund that would provide funding on top of that to which countries are already entitled. Rather, the 760 million dollars will come from money already destined for countries through the Bank’s low- income country lending programme, the International Development Association (IDA), or its middle-income programme, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD).

It will, however, allow money needed for the immediate needs of the people most vulnerable to the effects of rapid food price rises to be made available much sooner than IDA or IBRD funds normally would be.

This authority to "fast-track" funds under the GFRP had expired on Jun. 30, but the vote by the Bank’s executive board to extend the programme, announced Monday, extends this authority to Jun. 30, 2011.

Ultimately, though, minimising the impacts of food price volatility on vulnerable populations will require increased investment in women and smallholder farmers, says Neil Watkins, director of policy and campaigns at ActionAid.

"To the extent that countries are responding to a crisis that is largely external," he says, "we don’t think loans are the appropriate tool."

He says grants, especially for the poorest countries, would be better. It should be noted that while money coming through IBRD would be loans, that through IDA is usually termed "credits", with no interest and long repayment periods.

Watkins sees the food price volatility acknowledged in the Bank’s GFRP announcement as a product of an international market that is increasingly affected by demand for biofuels such as corn-derived ethanol and subject to the whims of commodity traders.

"As more and more investors get involved in commodity markets, [food markets] are being pulled away from real purchasers and sellers and more into the financial world," he says.

World Bank emerging as significant agricultural lender

But he thinks institutions are beginning to understand how they can help make communities less vulnerable to the whims of international markets: invest in smallholder farmers that produce food locally for their communities.

For its part, the World Bank seems to be playing a key role in these efforts. As the trustee of the Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme (GAFSP), launched in April, it facilitates a programme focused on long-term solutions to what are turning out to be recurring food crises. The money for GASFP comes from donor countries and the Gates Foundation and is in addition to any Bank loans or grants.

Watkins, who is on the steering committee of GAFSP as a civil society representative, says the programme "is one fund where you can tell the money that is being delivered is new money. One of the challenges of pledges in the past has been you can’t tell what pledges are new money and what is just being redirected from previous commitments."

And ahead of the Millennium Development Goals summit at the United Nations in September the Bank announced it was increasing its agricultural lending to 8.3 billion dollars a year, 45 percent of which would be through IDA.

Chris Delgado, a strategy and policy adviser in the Bank’s Agriculture and Rural Development Department who coordinates GFRP and is programme manager for GAFSP, told IPS following that announcement that he expected agriculture and rural lending to continue to increase in future years. In 1980, he said, it was 30 percent of total Bank lending, then dipped to seven percent around the start of this decade before rebounding to about 12 percent now.

Watkins says the Bank is "showing some promise" as a place where country-led proposals for smallholder farming can find a home.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2010.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Development, Health, Report Tagged With: ,

G20 Needs a ‘Variable Geometry Approach’

June 2, 2010 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

By Mui Pong Goh

IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint

LONDON (IDN) – As G20 governments prepare to meet in Toronto this month, has this young group already passed its high point? In November 2008, when the international economy perched on the brink of collapse, the leaders of the twenty leading economies were invited to Washington by then United States President George Bush to discuss possible measures to address the financial meltdown. Yet eighteen months and three fairly successful summits later, the process appears to have run out of steam.

Initial prospects for the G20 looked promising. At the London summit in April 2009, leaders said they would implement stimulus packages for their individual economies. Collectively, these amounted to 1.1 percent of world gross domestic product (GDP), propping up global demand.

They also agreed to boost the resources to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and multilateral development banks such as the World Bank and the other regional development banks by up to $1.1 trillion. The expansion of resources enabled greater lending to developing countries affected by the crisis, as well as providing much needed trade finance. The gathering ruled out trade protectionism.

GOVERNMENT DEBT

Yet those three accomplishments need qualification. As a consequence of the stimulus packages, the U.S. and most European governments’ capacity for more spending has been severely depleted. Public dissatisfaction with high levels of government debt is rising in the U.S. and Britain and to a certain extent in other European states.

The issue of dealing with government debt is likely to dominate the domestic political agenda in most of these countries. The danger now is that governments, pressurised by market forces and the public, will adopt deep spending cuts too quickly, leading to another downturn next year.

The sheer size of the resources boost for international institutions is impressive, even after taking into account double-counting and the failure to meet some of the G20 leaders’ pledges. This increase has, however, put the way these institutions are run back in the limelight. The fact that the heads of the IMF and World Bank are still chosen by nationality rather than merit, is politically indefensible.

POWER SHIFT

The recent shift of voting rights in the World Bank, which increased the share of votes for large emerging economies such as China, Brazil and India at the expense of the U.S., European states and Japanese, as well as some developing nations, is a small but symbolic move. A similar change of voting rights in the IMF can be expected at the Korea G20 summit in November. Yet given that these large emerging economies are growing fast relative to the existing developed economies, it will be necessary to ensure that there is a regular process for adjusting voting rights.

Ironically, the G20 has not received proper recognition for resisting trade protectionism. Despite claims from Global Trade Alert that almost three hundred ‘beggar-thy-neighbour’ policy measures have been implemented by G20 leaders since the Washington summit in November 2008, and the lack of progress in the Doha round of trade negotiations, markets remain fairly open and supposedly protectionist measures are not significant. This is especially so compared to the 1930s when regional trading blocs were formed.

KEEPING PROMISES

G20 leaders were able to build consensus for these actions in part because of the dire economic outlook in 2008 and early last year. All countries were equally affected by the downturn, though to differing extents.

Getting agreement for reform of the international economic architecture will be more difficult. In large part, this is because G20 countries have experienced the longer-term effects of economic globalisation and the economic crisis differently. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva captured the mood of many developing countries when he proclaimed that ‘rich countries were responsible for the crisis’.

Some Asian nations, Canada and Australia, which did not suffer from a banking crisis, as did the U.S., Britain and some European states, will resist additional regulatory burdens on their banking sectors. The proposed IMF levy on banks, so popular in the U.S. and most European states, is a case in point.

The easy phase of G20 summitry has now run its course. The time is right to recalibrate expectations. If they are set too high, the fledging forum will be guaranteed failure, since such expectations cannot be met. The leaders should be freed from the pressure of finding new policies for each summit. This might sound mistaken, but it is far better than promising too much and delivering too little.

The G20 is now considerably less prominent publicly, issues such as tackling global imbalances — particularly the large trade deficits between China and the US, and currency — have not received the attention they should at the centre of the agenda.

The Group also needs a larger constituency. In particular, it should consider a ‘variable geometry approach’ where representatives from non-member states are able to participate in summits and working groups on issues of concern to them. By co-opting such nations on specific issues, the organisation will defuse criticism of exclusivity, while avoiding the difficult question of whether it should expand.

The G20 serves as a useful focus for discussions on global economic governance. Although it is a self-selected group of countries, and Africa is underrepresented, there is some form of representation from all regions and its size allows effective decision-making. It may perhaps not be a forum where all issues — such as encouraging liberal democracies — will be raised by virtue of its composition; however, forging a working consensus on some key issues of global governance may be possible. The world needs such a forum.

*Mui Pong Goh is Research Fellow, International Economics, Chatham House, London. This article appeared first in the World Today, June 2010. (IDN-InDepthNews/01.06.2010)
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2010 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

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Filed Under: Commentary, Development, Economic Crisis Tagged With: , ,

The Poor Pay but the Rich Rule the World Bank

May 17, 2010 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

The Poor Pay but the Rich Rule the World Bank Credit: World Bank
By Nirode Massion

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

LONDON (IDN) – Rich countries will continue to crushingly dominate the World Bank in spite of recent shifts in countries’ voting power, which have been described as "historic changes to position the poverty fighting institution for the transformed world emerging from the global crisis".

The developing countries represent over 80 per cent of the world’s population and the Bank’s membership. Almost all of the Bank’s activities take place in those countries. Through loan repayments, they are the main financial contributors to the Bank.

In view of this, says a leading London-based think-tank, World Bank’s legitimacy continues to be inhibited. Inadequate reform limits the Bank’s capacity to serve the interests of developing countries, and violates democratic principles.

The ‘Bretton Woods Project’ (BWP) points out that high-income countries are set to hold onto over 60 per cent of voting power across the World Bank Group for at least the next five years. Middle-income countries – including global powers such as India, China and Brazil – are stuck on only around one third of the votes. Low-income countries languish on just 6 per cent, averaged across the different arms of the World Bank.

"No further reform is on the table for the next five years, so voting shares will stagnate at these inequitable levels until at least 2015," says BWP. There are plans to develop a formula to calculate voting shares in IBRD (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) and IDA (International Development Association), which would take into account countries’ economic weight, donations to IDA, and contributions to the Bank’s ‘development mission’.

"However, the latest reforms have set a worrying precedent. They placed a heavy emphasis on economic weight (75 per cent), followed by countries’ contributions to IDA (20 per cent) – both criteria which favour rich countries. The development element was accorded a derisory five per cent, and was also partly defined by IDA contributions," the BWP analysts explain.

Nor does the Bank show any sign of adopting robust definitions of developed or developing and transition countries (DTCs). On the contrary, it says that, "changing the DTC definition before reaching equitable voting power would complicate measuring the achievement of that important objective".

At the current rate of change, it will be decades before developing countries, home to the vast majority of the world’s population, even have parity of vote with developed nations, adds the analysis. "This pitiful path condemns the World Bank to illegitimacy and ineffectiveness as an institution mandated to combat poverty."

An alternative to this approach is to heed the call of the civil society groups for equal voting shares for developed and developing countries in the short term.

"This should be accompanied by a timetable for rapid further reforms, based on a formula that reflects democratic principles and has at its heart the Bank’s development mandate," says the BWP.

"Also vital is an end to the outdated practice of some countries having permanent seats on the Bank’s board, where European countries are particularly over-represented. These steps would put the World Bank on a far stronger footing to support development."
The Bank says that developing and transition countries will gain 3.13 per cent of the voting shares at IBRD, bringing them to 47.19 per cent. It claims that this represents a total shift of 4.59 per cent since 2008.

IBRD offers finance to middle-income countries. Voting shares are determined by countries’ economic weight, their contributions to IDA, and a commitment to move over time to ‘equitable voting power’ between developed countries and developing or transition countries. Extra votes are being issued to certain countries in return for those countries making extra contributions to the Bank’s capital.

WINNERS AND LOSERS

A closer look shows that the category of developing and transition countries, which is based on the World Economic Outlook by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), includes 16 countries that the Bank classifies as high-income economies. Among them are Saudi Arabia, Hungary and Kuwait.

These 16 countries together hold over 5 per cent of the vote. In reality then, high-income countries will cling onto almost 61 per cent of the vote, with middle-income countries getting under 35 per cent, and low-income countries on just 4.46 per cent.

The 78 countries actually eligible to borrow from IBRD will have only a third of voting power (34.1 per cent). Compare that to the more than one quarter of votes held by the 27 countries of the European Union. China and South Korea will gain more than half of the total transfer, while African countries will have a mere 0.19 per cent more.

The biggest winners: China (1.64%), South Korea (0.58%), Turkey (0.55%), Mexico (0.5%), and Singapore (0.24%). South Korea and Singapore are both high-income countries, and Mexico and Turkey are upper middle-income countries.

The biggest losers: Japan (-1.01%), UK (-0.55%), France (-0.55%), US (-0.51%), and Germany (-0.48%).

An important arm of the World Bank is IDA, which provides grants and concessional loans to the poorest countries. 79 countries, with a total population of 2.5 billion people, are eligible for IDA funding.

No new voting shares have been created for IDA. However, not all countries had taken up the full voting shares available to them, because to do so requires a financial contribution to the Bank. Four donor countries provided funds to enable poor countries to take up some of those previously unused shares, the BWP points out.

The Bank groups IDA member countries into ‘Part I’ or ‘Part II’. Part I comprises 26 wealthy countries, and the 143 Part II members are a mix of high-, middle- and low-income countries, including Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Israel.

The Bank claims that "Part II IDA members’ voting power has increased to 45.59%, as of March 2010. This represents very significant progress, up from 40.1% at the start of voice reform discussions in April 2008."

A closer look shows however that excluding high-income countries in Part II (Bahamas, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Hungary, Israel, South Korea, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovak Republic, Trinidad and Tobago), only 4.3 per cent of voting power at IDA has actually been transferred to developing countries. Low-income countries gained just 3.32 per cent.
High-income countries still have over 61 per cent of the votes, middle-income countries have under 28 per cent, and low-income countries have only 11 per cent. The very countries that IDA is meant to serve have the least representation.

Eleven countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have actually suffered a decline in their relative voting power. Bangladesh has lost more than the UK.

The biggest winners, says the BWP, are the Philippines (0.42%), Zimbabwe (0.34%), Algeria (0.26%), Moldova (0.25%), and Ethiopia (0.24%). Only half of the ten countries that gained most are low-income countries.

The biggest losers: the US (-1.47%), Japan (-1.09%), Germany (-0.69%), Italy (-0.34%), and France (-0.29%).

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is the private-sector arm of the World Bank Group. Voting power at the IFC is supposed to broadly reflect countries’ IBRD shareholdings, but historically the IFC has been even more heavily dominated by wealthy countries. Reforms have been implemented through an increase in basic votes to all shareholders and an optional, additional contribution to the IFC’s capital.

The Bank’s claims that developed countries’ share of the vote is said to have fallen from 66.59 per cent to 60.52 per cent, with developing and transition countries’ share rising from 33.41 per cent to 39.48 per cent.

Once again, however, the use of the ‘developing and transition’ country category is misleading. High-income countries have given up less than 5 per cent of their voting share – falling from over 70 per cent to 66.24 per cent. Middle-income countries will gain just over 3 per cent, putting them on 30.59 per cent.

The 0.71 per cent increase for low-income countries will give them a share of only 3.09 per cent. 46 rich countries will maintain two thirds of voting power at the IFC, leaving just one third for 136 poorer countries. This vast under-representation is particularly inappropriate given that investing in the poorest countries and ‘frontier’ regions is a priority for the IFC.

The biggest losers: US (-2.63%), Germany (-0.58%), France (-0.54%), UK (-0.54%), and Italy (-0.36%).

The biggest winners are: China (1.28%), Brazil (0.62%), Saudi Arabia (0.56%), Russia (0.43%), and India (0.43%). None of the ten countries gaining most is a low-income country; four of the top ten (Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Kuwait and Japan) are high-income countries. (IDN-InDepthNews/17.05.2010)
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Copyright © 2010 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission the original author or copyright holder.


Filed Under: Development, Featured, Finance, Inequality, Poverty Tagged With: ,

World Bank Boosts Commitment to Lower Maternal Mortality

May 12, 2010 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, May 12  (IPS)  – The World Bank intends to ramp up spending on family-planning and related initiatives to reduce maternal mortality, improve reproductive health, and reduce fertility rates in nearly 60 developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a new five-year plan released by the Bank here this week.

The initiative, laid out in a 66-page ‘Reproductive Health Action Plan’, is designed in part to inject new momentum into flagging global efforts to achieve a 75-percent reduction in the maternal mortality ratio between 1990 and 2015 – the fifth of eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the United Nations in 2000. It also calls for access to universal reproductive health care by 2015.

Of all the MDGs, which include sharp reductions in child mortality rates, hunger, and extreme poverty, the least amount of progress has been made in improving maternal health, according to the latest statistics.

To achieve such a 75-percent reduction in maternal mortality over the 25 years, for example, countries would have to achieve annual decreases of some 5.5 percent. But the global average rate of reduction, according to the Bank, is currently less than one percent, and only 0.1 percent in sub-Saharan Africa, where mortality levels are the world’s highest.

In releasing its plan, the Bank said it hoped to help reverse recent trends that have seen a steady relative decline in financial support for family-planning and other reproductive health programmes from low-income countries, donors, and aid agencies over the past 15 years compared to other health programmes, particularly for HIV/AIDS.

Thus, while development aid for health nearly quintupled – from 2.9 billion dollars in 1995 to 14.1 billion dollars in 2007 – aid for population and reproductive health increased far more modestly – from about 900 million dollars to 1.9 billion dollars 12 years later.

Nor has the Bank, the world’s single biggest source of development assistance, been immune. The share claimed by reproductive health from its general health portfolio declined from 18 percent in 1995 to a mere 10 percent in 2007, the Bank said.

Globally, more than 350,000 women die each year – 99 percent of them in developing countries – due to pregnancy and childbirth complications. An estimated 68,000 women die each year, and more than five million more suffer temporary or permanent disability, as a result of unsafe abortions. In some countries, as much as 25 percent of maternal deaths result from unsafe abortions.

”A mother’s unnecessary death in childbirth is not just a human tragedy. It’s also an economic and social catastrophe that deprives her surviving children of nurture and nutrition and too often of the chance of education,” according to Julian Schweitzer, the Bank’s acting vice president of human development.

”Maternal deaths are both caused by poverty and are a cause of it. The costs of childbirth are often the single biggest cause of casting a family into poverty. And, if the mother dies in childbirth, the chances of her baby surviving the first year of life are drastically reduced,” he added.

The Bank’s total health portfolio in the current fiscal year is expected to triple to an unprecedented 4.1 billion dollars, a 40-percent increase over the previous year’s record.

Much of the additional funding will be devoted to strengthening national and local health systems, particularly in ways that enhance access by women to family-planning and other reproductive-health services.

The plan calls for focusing on 58 countries with persistently high maternal death and fertility rates, including more than 40 poor African nations, as well as Iraq and Yemen in the Middle East; Afghanistan, Nepal, and Pakistan in South Asia; Cambodia, Laos the Philippines, and Timor Leste in Asia; and Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras and Haiti in Latin America.

The plan calls for providing more contraceptive services. While the use of contraceptives has increased in all developing regions, it remains particularly low – about 22 percent in 2008 – in sub-Saharan Africa despite strong polling data showing a much higher demand.

In order to increase access to contraceptives, according to the Bank, it will work with its government and non-governmental partners to address logistical problems that have hindered the delivery of sufficient supplies at local clinics and pharmacies, expand health-education efforts directed at unmarried adolescents, and step up family-planning services that help to prevent or reduce unsafe abortions as part of a country’s basic health programme.

The Bank also plans to promote more prenatal care for women who carry their pregnancies to term.

According to the plan, less than half of pregnant women in the period 2004-2008 were attended to at least four times – the recommended minimum by the World Health Organsation (WHO) and the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) – during their pregnancy by skilled health personnel.

Moreover, only 61 percent of women in developing countries – and only 44 percent in sub-Saharan Africa and 42 percent in Southern Asia – delivered with the help of skilled birth attendants. Thus, the Bank said it will promote the training and use of midwives and other skilled professionals in national health systems.

The plan also calls for continued emphasis on education for girls and women, noting that high birth rates are closely correlated with little or no education, as well as entrenched poverty. Surveys in all developing regions have shown that women with secondary or higher education have fewer children than women whose schooling is more limited.

”Promoting girls’ and women’s education and the opportunity to succeed are just as important in reducing birth rates in the long run as promoting contraception and family planning,” according to Sadia Chowdhury, co-author of the new plan. ”Education and greater gender equity become a form of social contraception for women.”

The plan noted that the Bank will work closely with several other U.N. agencies, including WHO, UNICEF, and the U.N. Population Fund and bilateral donors, as well as the new Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, which includes a coalition of more than 300 NGOs, in its implementing goals.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2010.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


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