On the occasion of the opening of the World Bank's Semiannual Meeting

Robert B. Zoellick

"Zoellick's Next Challenge Is Redefining Bank's Role: Global Economy Diminishes Influence"
By Neil Irwin, The Washington Post, October 19, 2007.

Excerpts:

"I believe we've been able to calm some of the waters while starting to navigate a course ahead," Zoellick told reporters yesterday.

Figuring out what that course is could be the hard part. That's because the role that the World Bank was created to fill -- making loans to poor nations to help them modernize -- is now filled ably by world financial markets.

Some $647 billion in private capital flowed into developing countries in 2006, according to the bank's data. That dwarfs the $24.7 billion that the bank's two major arms committed to development in the last fiscal year.....

Last week, Zoellick, a former chief U.S. trade negotiator, deputy secretary of state and Goldman Sachs executive, sketched out his vision for keeping that from happening. In a speech at the National Press Club, he said he envisioned the World Bank playing a key role to making sure the benefits of global capitalism are dispersed.

"Globalization must not leave the 'bottom billion' behind," Zoellick said, referring to the world's poorest inhabitants.

He wants the bank's 10,000 staffers to coordinate the efforts of a vast array of government, charitable and business resources that play a role in making poor countries less poor. He mentioned a wide range of specific goals: improving health care, fighting corruption, building financial markets, addressing global warming, overcoming violent conflict and more.....

This weekend, as finance ministers from around the world descend on Washington for meetings of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the G-7 group of major industrialized nations, Zoellick's immediate task is to get commitments to fund the International Development Association, which provides aid to the very poorest nations, mostly in Africa.

The World Bank has already committed $3.5 billion of its own capital to fund the IDA, and Zoellick has said he wants to persuade national governments to contribute billions more, aiming to get those commitments by the end of the year.

The nations that would benefit from IDA do not have the same access to private capital as middle-income nations like China, India and Brazil, so World Bank aid can do them more good, Lerrick said. But the very things that keep them from being able to raise private money, such as corrupt or unstable governments, make it difficult to ensure that aid goes to help poor people, rather than to line the pockets of bureaucrats.