This week in Berlin the World Bank will shuffle around the EU meeting with an upturned palm asking for more funding from the EU countries. Britain, like a guilt-ridden Christmas shopper will dig deep and throw its wallet into the hands of the Bank. For those concerned with International Development, the government might just be throwing in the towel as well.
The department for International Development (DfID) is set to see a budget increase by 11% to £7.9 billion a year by 2010-11. Unfortunately whilst its budget has swelled its department has shrunk. In the name of efficiency, demanded by opposition parties DfID will have to outsource large amounts of its work and taxpayers money to unaccountable international institutions like the World Bank.
The Bank is the largest single development agency in the world and funds grants and loans for things such as health, education and infrastructure building in the developing world. Its influence however stretches well beyond mere finance. Despite being an undemocratic and unaccountable institution itself, the Bank plays a primary role in shaping the political and economic agenda in the developing world. A lot of this revolves, somewhat ironically, around its Anti-Corruption Agenda.
Corruption is central in the challenge of development. The horror stories of developing country government elites waltzing off to Swiss Banks with millions of pounds of aid money has made development and corruption inseparable in people’s minds. Corruption is a major problem, one that infects all powers throughout the world. The worry is the way in which the World Bank uses anti-corruption to demand that developing countries fit into the Banks ideology of ‘good’ governance.
The Bank defines corruption as ‘the abuse of private office for pubic gain’. Interestingly the role that private individuals and corporations play in corruption sees no mention. This betrays the Banks profound antagonism towards government. It believes that if given any chance to interfere with the ‘logic’ of the market, governments and bureaucracy will cordon off vast sums for themselves and their supporters. Their neoliberal belief that international market liberalisation with a minimal role of government is the only path to development, is inescapable.
Cynics would suggest that the Bank’s sudden focus on corruption and governance is to absolve itself of responsibility of its failures over the last fifty years. Perhaps if the Bank were really concerned about good governance it would spare a moment for introspection. Its president is selected solely by the US government, who are accountable more to its corporate paymasters than the US population. There is also a significant problem when the democratic right of a citizen in Zambia, for example, is trampled all over by World Bank policy. In the name of good governance and ‘fiscal discipline’ the Bank demanded that education and health no longer be paid out of general taxation. Instead unaccountable private companies and NGOs took over. Predictably life expectancy fell to 40 years old and infant mortality piled higher. This strikingly poor governance had nothing to do with Zambia or its citizens.
The rhetoric coming out of the Bank, and its anti-corruption agenda is one that presents development as merely a technical, economic problem. Get the prices right and the magic of the market takes care of everything. Whilst democratically regulated markets play an essential role in development the concern is that this sort of approach excludes considerations of power structures, class and ethnic divisions, historical trajectories and so on, all of which shape the successes of development.
British taxpayers, along with developing countries deserve better than having their policies taken out of their hands. International Development (or justice) is no distant, left-wing dream, there are clear policies that can help or hinder the process. It is a political process, not an economic one. Rather than letting further accountability slip from our hands we should demand DfID ignore the World Banks plea for more funding.
