The World Bank. One of the Bretton Woods institutions conceived after World War 2 along with the International Monetary Fund to help rebuild war torn countries, which later ostensibly turned its sights on development and poverty reduction.
The bank seeks to encourage global development by making large loans and investments in developing countries. You may have heard the term “structural adjustment” used before. This means that the bank makes large capital loans to governments in developing countries and in return, the country adopts new, market friendly policies. They deregulate, they remove domestic protections, and they reduce government spending.
But what if I told you that in the past these loans have propped up authoritarian regimes with horrific human rights records, and the World Bank didn’t seem to care. What if I told you that the World Bank method of making loans with conditionalities actually weakens target countries, and far from ending poverty, worsens material conditions of people living in developing nations.
And what if I told you, that World Bank officials know all this, that this research is widely available but an internal culture of denial seems to suppress and ignore research that runs contrary to the aims of the bank.
