William Easterly, author of some really fine books on development economics, offers his insightful take on the travails of Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank in today’s Washington Post: “Does He Hear the World’s Poor? Don’t Bank on It.”
William Easterly, author of some really fine books on development economics, offers his insightful take on the travails of Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank in today’s Washington Post: “Does He Hear the World’s Poor? Don’t Bank on It.”
Professor Easterly wrote:
“[P]oor nations are now deserting the bank to seek loans from private capital markets or grants from aid donors like China, who are in it for No. 1. Meanwhile, new private foundations (the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Google.org and so on) are taking over traditional bank areas such as health and agriculture. . . .
“Can–or should–the bank be saved? Yes, but not without real change. It would be a shame to discard the world’s largest repository of development knowledge and experience.”
I don’t see why it would be a shame. Assuming valuable knowledge and experience actually exist at the World Bank, they could surely be put to better use if they were liberated from the dead hand of a political institution.
I agree overall. But better that it be limited to being a research institution rather than what it is now.