From World Bank to America Bank

FROM WORLD BANK TO AMERICA BANK

On the Nomination of Paul Wolfowitz as Head of the World Bank

By Leonard Plank

[This article published in the Attac-Austria web site is translated from the German on the World Wide Web, http://www.attac.at/1555.98.html.]



The nomination of Paul Wolfowitz as the president of the World Bank ensures transatlantic disgruntlement and dismay among the NGOs engaged for development. President Bush had a hard time explaining to the unenlightened rest of the world why he proposes a man completely lacking in development experience, international credibility in combating poverty and ability to forge international consensus.

The reconstruction in Iraq shows the possible course of the World Bank in the future if Bush pulls through his candidate. In the first planning phase, the “hawks” in the Pentagon excluded the State Department and persons with experience in development. The Bush government concentrated on radical market theories in Iraq without seeing the obvious dangers of this initiative. The priorities are striking. Journalists reported about passionate speeches by Paul Bremer, leader of the interim government in Iraq, on privatization of state enterprises. The theme of rapid democratization hardly seemed to matter to the Iraq administrator.

Talking about democratization: The other “wolf” – the World Bank president James Wolfensohn – at least rhetorically repositioned the crisis-ridden organization criticized for its neoliberal structural adjustment policy and its disastrous mega-projects. He successfully changed the image of the World Bank with many beautiful words and great enthusiasm.

Despite some improvements (de-tabooing of the debt cancellation theme and initiation of comprehensive evaluations), the reality unfortunately looks different than the PR-strategists hoped. Almost ten years after the debt cancellation initiative, hardly one of the countries has reached a sound debt level – even according to the World Bank criteria. Privatization and liberalization are still central conditions for debt cancellation and the awarding of new credits.

If Wolfowitz comes out on top, the façade of his predecessor will be destroyed with one blow. The Europeans could speak with one voice. They could prevent the selection of Wolfowitz and the transformation of the World Bank into the America Bank. The antiquated and undemocratic 1944 procedure where the US names the head of the World Bank and Europe the head of the IMF could be changed. Europe could take the first step here. Hopefully the political will won’t be lacking again.