Search

Abstract Intra-household water use and management from a gender perspective has remained a relatively under-researched theme in developed countries. Australia is no exception, with the lack of research particularly evident [...]

The Meltzer Commission report released in March 2000, contends that the World Bank had a failure rate of 55 to 60 percent for projects in all developing countries and that the bank should be transformed into something that is hardly a bank at all, it could probably remain as an overseer of neoliberal policy, and let the private sector handle most of the cash. Critics on both right and Left agree on the Bank's pitfalls, though they hold different understandings of why projects have failed.

The Poverty Reduction Strategy Initiative of the Bretton Woods institutions launched by the World Bank and IMF in 1999 was to alter the lending practices of the institutions in Ghana, and to understand policymaking in highly indebted, aid-dependent African countries. In order to reform the donor-led policy regime, the people would have to pressurize the borrowing governments to change the way they interact with donors.

A critique of World Bank procedure is presented, specifically the process of linking financial aid to recipient nation policy. A case is made for decoupling aid from national policy and creating a supranational endowment fund, which would finance research findings on development of common international goods.

We apply recent advances in propensity-score matching (PSM) to the problem of estimating the distribution of net income gains from an Argentinean workfare program. PSM has a number of attractive [...]

The water wars rationale predicts that countries will wage war to safeguard their access to water resources, especially if there is water scarcity, competitive use and the countries are enemies due to a wider conflict. Following this argument, India and Pakistan should have fought a war over the Indus basin instead of negotiating the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty. In explaining this Indo-Pakistan cooperation which is specifically over water, the critical feature that emerges is that through cooperation the countries were able to safeguard their long-term water supply. In other words, cooperation is water rational. Using the Indus basin experience, the underlying logic of the water wars rationale is questioned, in particular, the use of public statements by key decisionmakers as evidence of future water wars and is shown to be wanting. KEY WORDS: India, Pakistan, Indus Waters Treaty, World Bank, water wars, water rationality, cooperation

This article analyzes the shortcomings of post-development criticism by using the works of Michel Foucault as a theoretical departure point, therefore drawing a distinction between the operation of power in colonial and development eras, requiring a shift away from ideas that a single force directs development and the colonization metaphor used by some writers on post-development. The author combines Foucault's concept of normalization with his notion of 'dispositif' in order to understand how postwar development projects operated and to understand the power operations of the World Bank.

The author examines two reports from the World Bank, the 'World Development Report, 1999-2000' and 'The Long March: A Reform Agenda for Latin America and the Caribbean In The Next Decade' (1997), both of which attempt to come to terms with the practice and policy of structural adjustment in the context of the changing geography of global finance. The author suggests that both reports are influenced by the statist geographical imagination that dominates the World Bank and struggles to explain developments in the geography of money.

This article introduces the topic for this issue, which focuses on health issues in developing countries and the emergence of new diseases in the last quarter century, ranging from the HIV virus to equally deadly but little known haemorraghic fevers like Ebola. Issues include lack of new drugs and ineffectiveness of many known chemotherapeutical controls for treating and controlling viruses, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund's preeminence over the World Health Organization in formulating social and health policies, especially in developing countries, global health policies, structures and governances are appraised, and the effects of globalization on health are considered.

Over the past two decades the functions of international economic institutions have greatly expanded to include programmes and policies which affect a wider range of people, groups, and organisations than before. Where previously people could hold their national governments to account for such policies, they must now look to international institutions where the decisions are being made. But to whom are these institutions accountable and are they accountable to those whom they directly affect? This paper sets out to answer that question in respect of the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO. After analysing the new intrusiveness of the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank, we explore how the concept of accountability might best be applied to international economic institutions. The paper then outlines the specific ways in which the IMF, World Bank, and WTO have recently bolstered their accountability through enhanced transparency and monitoring. In conclusion, however, the paper argues that in spite of improvements in accountability, the international economic institutions have not gone far enough in reforming their governance structures. There is a remaining imbalance between what they do, and their legitimacy as perceived by those they affect.

This article discusses the international campaign for the World Trade Organization to include a labor rights clause. The author argues that the campaign has successfully highlighted the need for core labor standards, but needs to broaden its base to include development-related demands, increase union involvement from developing countries, and increase membership mobilization to complement lobbying and political activity.

A case study is presented on funding rural electrification in Mozambique, via a project managed by the World Bank. An enabling framework was established for private sector investment, which included a high level of transparency in preparing tender documentation and management contracts.

This paper explores the impact of donor supervision on development project performance using data from World Bank-funded projects. Maximum likelihood estimation of a restricted ordered probit function finds that early supervision has a positive impact on performance. Given the size of World Bank-funded projects, gains from increasing supervision far outweigh the costs. The results provide evidence of an institutional bias toward lending at the expense of increased development impact.

The World Bank is undertaking a dynamic reform initiative designed to boost its internal performance and external effectiveness. It is wrong to claim that the World Bank's lending is misdirected and that its performance is worsening.

Many reforms proposed in the Mar 2000 report on the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are economically sound, especially the proposal that these organizations should not serve foreign policy needs. The IMF's ability to provide lines of credit to qualifying nations could prevent liquidity crises and bailouts.

The World Bank Group and its three regional counterparts support a loan portfolio of $300 billion and each year give a total of $50 billion in loans to developing members. The failure rate of World Bank projects is very high, and it is clear that costless donor participation in the development banks does not exist. It is now time to ensure that incentive, the driving force behind economic behaviour, governs both Bank and client. Hidden transfers must be replaced by explicit grants and subsidies, and all aid must be fully accounted for. Poverty cannot be eliminated without institutional reforms which act as the basis for effective investment and economic growth.

The World Bank cultivates an image of contributing what the private sector is unable or unwilling to supply. The facts do not back up this image. The World Bank's mandate specifically includes displacing private sector resources, but since 1993 only 22% of resources, apart from aid transfers, have gone to countries without an international bond rating of B or higher. The World Bank presents its lending activities as market-based and concessional. In fact, both are extremely subsidized. It is now time for the World Bank Group to become the agent which facilitates the flow of private resources by forming an intellectual infrastructure that encourages productive investment.

The challenges that the World Bank must act upon, increasing growth and decreasing poverty, are as important to resolve in 2000 as they were when the World Bank was established. Population growth and economic instability are the causes of these challenges remaining in place.

This article examines the rationale for the World Bank and explores whether its objective is best served by its current mix of activities. We are critical of the Bank's reliance on conditionality, and advocate evolution into a Knowledge Bank, which would lend with few conditions to countries with good policies and good institutions, and would concentrate on the provision of knowledge and technical assistance, rather than lending, in countries where the policy framework is poor. We also advocate an expansion in the Bank's role as a provider of global public goods; we critically examine the Banks role in relation to financial crises.

World bank chief economist, Joe Stiglitz, has been involved in a debate on the management of global financial crises. He criticizes the view that liberalization of capital markets and free trade will bring economic success for developing economies. He sees the recession in Asia as resulting from inappropriate policies. The International Monetary Fund argues that sacrifices have to be made to tackle financial crises. Meanwhile there is a broadening consensus that some regulation of capital flows may be helpful, and this is reflected in discussions on setting up a new financial 'architecture'.

Evaluation procedures go hand in hand with development policies/projects and public policies. The establishment of institutions devoted to impartial evaluations is historical in nature. The practice of evaluation by these institutions, however, raises difficult issues especially those about variables deriving from the aid institution itself. In this context, the World Bank and its Operations Evaluation Dept in relation to the institution's loan activities, their results and their evaluation are investigated.

This editorial reviews problems arising from the popular 'Washington consensus' economic package as economies become more globalized, and the reasons why they occur. Suggestions for improving the performance of the institutions behind the policies - the World Bank and International Monetary Fund - are provided.

The World Bank has been financing projects to enhance efficiency in the oil and gas sector of its client countries through loans, credits, and technical assistance. During the early 1980s, the Bank concentrated on projects related to the exploration and development of hydrocarbon resources. In 1990, it was at the forefront of developing natural gas as an alternative to coal and oil. Increased exploration and development activities for the second half of the 1990s is expected to increase the participation of the World Bank in these endeavors.

The World Bank was established as one of the pillars of the Bretton Woods system for managing postwar international economic order. The public, multilateral institution was recognized as the catalyst for credit programs in developing countries and as a source of concepts for economic and social foundation. The World Bank was primarily concerned with the stabilization of the monetary system following postwar disorder.

We examine the recent debates about governance, focusing particularly on the World Bank and identify certain factors which have in recent years moved the Bank's thinking beyond narrowly economic notions of development. our account is tentative and we suggest further avenues of research. We try to connect the Bank's thinking systematically with key features of liberal discourse and suggest that this can do much to illuminate practice. We illustrate this with a discussion of the growing relationship between the Bank and NGOs, to contribute to forms of analysis which go beyond the ideas vs. interests polarities that still inform so much of contemporary social and political theory.

This paper addresses policy innovation in international organizations and explains it in terms of four factors: independence of the IO within the international regime of which it is a member; external pressure; the consistency of new issues with organizational goals and procedures; and internal policy advocacy. Internal policy advocacy, not often considered in the development literature, is seen as an intervening variable between the first three factors and the response to innovation. The first section of the paper addresses the conditions under which IOs respond to new issues, using different combinations of these four factors, with examples. The second section focuses on a case study on internal advocacy efforts in the World Bank by a group of staff members to incorporate sociological issues, especially in the area of involuntary resettlement and tribal populations' rights. While external pressure played a large role in putting pressure on the World Bank, these insiders were the ones who introduced the issues in ways that fit the goals and procedures of the World Bank in an otherwise resistant environment and forged links with outside allies, thereby contributing to new policy guidelines, to the hiring of more staff with social science training, and, in general, to the increased legitimacy of these issues in the World Bank.

The World Bank is under fire from over a hundred civic groups from around the world for its support on the Sardar Sarovar dam construction in India's Narmada River. The World Bank has signified its approval for the project with the granting of a total loan infusion worth $925 million. Much of the project's controversy focus on villageresettlement and an array of environmental concerns. The worldwide series of protests, the first against an international financing institution, is led by the Save the Narmada Movement.