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.
THE TRUTH ABOUT BLACKS!
The other race explained by a black who knows!
“My mates tell me the reason I don’t have a black friend is because my bedroom is a bit on the messy side. Do blacks really make an issue out of that kind of thing?”
To be honest, I don’t know any black who’d be happy to be invited back to a filthy flat. Admittedly some blacks can be obsessive about cleanliness but if you really want to get lucky you’ll just have to live with that.
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The above passage, adjusted from last Friday’s Nuts Magazine shows how quickly ‘harmless fun’ disintegrates into something more sinister when placed in a different context. From the original copy the references made to ‘women’ were changed to ‘blacks’ and ‘men’ to ‘whites’. Whilst the analogy may not be perfect the prejudices it displays remain. Nuts may be a flaccid target for critics but with almost 6000 copies a week sold in the UK it demands attention.
‘Lad’s Mags’ often attract criticism for their objectification of people. Whether objectification need be dehumanising is an important debate. However, in this example I simply question whether the attitudes on display would be deemed unacceptable in a different context.
Like racism, you will never rid society of sexism. Thankfully in the last century much progress has been made on both fronts. The common defence of such publications and the attitudes portrayed is that they are simply what the market demands. Yet, in today’s age it would be unthinkable for companies to sell their goods through a racist card. Why should it be different when dealing with an equally ignorant prejudice?
Racism entails assigning behavioural and cultural traits to the different biological ethnicities. On the basis of these imaginary characteristics a racist concludes that one ethnic group is superior to another. The above article carried a similar process of behavioural assumptions about men and women.
The shocking statistics released last month by the British Crime Survey estimated 200,000 incidents of rape and sexual abuse, of which the police recorded only 12,000 and disgracefully only 5% ended in conviction. This means that of the 200,000 cases of rape committed only 600 men end up in prison.
Too often the pervasive notions of gender prescribed the media are divorced from the visible crimes they reveal themselves in. In no way does reading Nuts amount to raping women but the complacent attitude that brushes aside offensive writing as ‘harmless fun’ does seem to exhibit itself in these far uglier forms.
Last year Anna was savagely beaten up in Notting Hill late one evening. She called the police the morning after, only to be questioned about whether she’d been drinking and what she’d done to provoke this assault. The officer rounded off the call with the news that they were unlikely to catch the man who did this to her so there was little point in proceeding. Yet, in the same area, there is no shortage of yellow Metropolitan police incident boards seeking information when men are the victims of unprovoked violence. Rather than being an isolated incident the statistics suggest cases like this are indicative of the entire system.
Returning to race, if there were numerous magazines reducing and homogenising ethnic groups to imbeciles, accompanied by evidence of intrinsic racism in the police force, there would, quite rightly be public outrage. The two things would be discussed together and wider questions about our attitudes towards race would be raised.
The dominant ideas of both women and men that pervade are ignorant and offensive. The contest to the millennia of misogyny has only just begun. If progress is to be made we must challenge ourselves to make a stand and demand debate about these issues.
