WORLD BANK
History
The World Bank was created during World War II at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire.
After the war, World Bank's goal was to help European countries with post-war
reconstruction. Its first loan of $250 million was given to France in 1947. During the
1980s, the World Bank followed many directions leading from macroeconomic and debt
rescheduling issues to social and environmental issues.
The Bank started to be criticized because they didn't observe their own policies. Thus,
the quality of Bank operations was questioned. This criticism led to new reform and
renewal. Since then, the Bank has made a significant progress. In order to improve
internal efficiency and external effectiveness, the Bank made sure that all of its five
institutions have been working separately as well as in collaboration.
Today, the Bank is much bigger and broader with its focus primarily on
poverty reduction. It encourages poor countries growth by using resources from rich
countries. "The name World Bank is the name that has come to be used for the
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International
Development Association (IDA)" (www.worlbank.com.).
Members and Structure
The IBRD is made up of 184 member countries that are responsible for how the
organization is financed and how its money is spent. IDA is made up of 165 member
countries. In total, "The World Bank Group consist of five closely associated institutions,
all owned by member countries that carry ultimate decision-making power"
(www.worldbank.com). These include: IBRD, IDA, IFC, MIGA, and ICSID. The term
"World Bank" refers specifically to IBRD and IDA while the term "World Bank Group"
refers to all five institutions. Each of the five institutions plays a specific role in fighting
poverty and improving living standards in the developing world.
The Boards of Executive Directors are...
World Bank
Hmm, informative essay but you are using facts selectively here. The World Bank is what has helped to get Sudan into such massive debt in the first place. These loans are not interest free and the developing countries cant pay them off. Organisations like the World Bank, and the World Bank itself have advocated the use of cash crops in sub-saharan africa. These cash crops were not thought through properly, and instead of the farmers using the land to farm food for themselves, they were forced to farm crops such as cotton instead, so that the country could sell it to try and pay off it's massive, ever increasing debt. This left the African people with no food, no money for food and no means of growing food. Not to mention that fact that lots of the cash crops failed, either because the crop they were forced to grow was not suited to the climate/soil, or because the production of the same crop was increased in other countries lowering the price and meaning that countries would not buy off of african countries because their crops were too expensive. This left African countries in even more debt, which is NOT interest free, meaning it is ever-increasing and impossible to pay off. Its evil.
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