World Bank want its repayments in Rupees

Loan will be sanctioned in dollars but would be repaid in Rupees
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The World Bank is considering whether to make a huge loan to India in rupees rather than dollars.
The Maharashtra state government is seeking a loan worth some $3.5bn but is concerned about the fluctuations in the value of the dollar.
If approved, it would be the first time the World Bank has agreed to a such a loan in rupees. The bank says the money would be invested in health, water, energy and irrigation projects.

World Bank approval

The loan represents some 60% of total costs for the development project which come to nearly $6bn. The idea is that the loan would be sanctioned in dollars, but would be handed over in rupees. All repayments would be in rupees too. This would prevent any changes in the amount to be repaid caused by fluctuating exchange rates.
The loan still has to get the approval of the World Bank, India's central government and the Maharashtra state government. The loan arrangement was discussed at a meeting between World Bank Country Director for India, Isabel Guerrero, and Maharashtra state government officials on Thursday.

In the last few months, the rupee has appreciated sharply against the dollar from 45 rupees to a dollar to 40 rupees to a dollar. One of the projects Maharashtra wants help with is the Mumbai Metro project, projected to cost $2.5bn. It is hoping to receive loans of $1.5bn. The project would connect south Mumbai (Bombay) to the suburbs. Other projects include rural and urban water supplies, power transmission, technical support for a "vision Mumbai" plan and a possible Public Private Partnership (PPP) in irrigation.

World Bank and Knowledge Production

I have been continuing to wonder how the World Bank manages to strangle developing countries through relatively small amounts of money. We all talk of its role of "knowledge provider" and the power that assumes. In keeping my eyes open for examples I couldn't help but notice that in the recently reported changes to its GDP estimates, China and India have fallen by 40%. This has been widely reported in the media.

Now how can the World Bank change its rankings so drastically without its credibility being called into question? So far not a whisper....


http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Perspectives/India_shrinking/articleshow/2649557.cms

http://go.worldbank.org/B5PYF93QF0

World Bank grants $ 225 mn loan to Bihar

First Bihar Development Policy Loan to aim for economic growth through reforms in agriculture, investment climate, roads, public service delivery in education and social protection
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The World Bank has approved a $225 million loan to Bihar aimed to support the state in implementing reforms in fiscal policy, public financial management, and governance, in order to boost economic growth.
“While India has emerged as one of the fastest growing countries in the world, it faces the challenge of addressing widening economic disparities. Bihar is the poorest state in India with about 39% of population living in poverty,” The Bank said in a statement.
The First Bihar Development Policy Loan is designed to improve fiscal policy, public financial management and governance.
“It aims to boost economic growth through reforms in agriculture, investment climate, and basic infrastructure, with an emphasis on roads. It will also support improving public service delivery in education and social protection,” it said.
“Bihar is a crucial state for poverty reduction and inclusive growth in India,” said Isabel Guerrero, World Bank Country Director for India.
Bihar registered economic growth of 4% in recent years which is much slower than the rest of the country While the state has 8.5% of India’s population, it accounts for only 1.6% of the country’s GDP.
“It is India’s poorest as well as one of its slowest growing states. But with arable land, water resources, favourable demography, and unexploited tourism potential, Bihar has the necessary preconditions to accelerate development. By focusing on accelerating growth and improving public service delivery, this operation will assist Bihar towards achieving the development goals set out in its Eleventh Plan,” she added.

World Bank and Food Security, by Madhura Swaminathan

"There is enough evidence now that the Structural Adjustment Programs initiated by the World Bank have been associated with severe reduction in food subsidies in a large number of countries."

Madhura Swaminathan shares her concerns about the implications of World Bank and the IMF narrow targeting of food subsidies. By reducing the poverty line to an alarming level, the government, under the influence of international financial institutions, abandons millions of Indians to starvation.

Author of several books, like Financial Liberalization and Rural Credit in India (2005), Madhura Swaminathan is an economics professor in the Indian institute of Statistics, Kolkatta.

Alternative to World Bank launched

The Bank of the South, an initiative spearheaded by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, was inaugurated on 9 December 2007. The finance ministers of Venezuela, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Peru and Chile will all sit in the bank’s board of directors.

The new bank is Latin America’s response to years of subservience to the dictates of U.S.-dominated financial institutions. "The Bank of the South is a strategy ... aimed at freeing us from the chains of dependence and underdevelopment," Chávez said.

The Bank of the South will fund projects ranging from infrastructure development to anti-poverty programs without the "strings attached" model of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank that only seek to further the interests of foreign capital.

It is set to have its headquarters in Caracas, with further offices in Buenos Aires and La Paz. It is scheduled to be operational in early 2008, with an estimated initial capital of 7 billion dollars.

The bank is planned to finance development and integration projects with a low rate of interest.

African Diaspora to fund TNCs and the G8?

A new plan conceived by the Bank, a "Diaspora Remittances Investment Fund", could take the foreign exchange earned by Africans living abroad who send money back home, and leverage it to fund World Bank organized projects.

What does this mean? The Bank would say that this is an effort to improve the economic impact of remittances. If you are among the critics of the Bank who see the Bank as a global institution which influences the policies of Southern governments to the benefit of multinational capital, this new scheme looks like a shameless attempt to co-opt the flow of African remittances to this purpose.

There will have been four Bank publications on remittances this year alone with the upcoming The International Migration of Women (November 2007). The others are:

-Migration and Remittances Factbook (print version December 2007). Online at www.worldbank.org/prospects/migrationandremittances.
-International Migration, Economic Development & Policy (2007)
-South-South Migration and Remittances(2007)

The Bank has published on its web site (in bold no less) that "recorded remittances to developing countries are estimated to reach $240 billion in 2007. The true size of remittances including unrecorded flows is even larger". Bank and the private sector eyes are popping, and the new fund is the first formal plan from the Bank to directly channel this global financial flow.

The plan may be modeled on similar inititatives in Latin America. The Inter-American Development Bank’s Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) which promotes private sector development in Latin America and the Caribbean, has various programs to manage remittances.

For more information about the "Fund", see:
http://allafrica.com/stories/200712020012.html

European Parliament passes resolution to end taxpayer support for fossil fuel projects

ECA's promotes export in developing countries which contribute to long term green house emission.
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On November 29, the European Parliament overwhelmingly passed a resolution on trade and climate change calling for the “discontinuation of public support, via export credit agencies and public investment banks, for fossil fuel projects.” The resolution asks EU governments to propose legislative mechanisms that would force export credit agencies and the European Investment Bank to “take account of the climate change implications of the funded projects” and to “impose a moratorium on funding until sufficient data are available.”
The resolution also calls on financiers to work harder to transfer public funds to renewable energy and energy efficient technologies. This move was applauded by civil society organizations who argue that government leadership is needed to hold finance and trade agencies accountable for ignoring the effects their activities have on the climate.

more info:

UN Says Market Privatizations Would Be the Worst Scenario for the Environment

By Herv Kempf
Le Monde
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The planet's ecological future directly depends on the political choices that will be exercised: this observation had never before been clearly spotlighted by a United Nations decision-making body. Now it's done: the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) asserts in a thick report, the so-called "GEO 4", published Thursday October 25, that generalized privatization of resources and services would be the worst scenario from an environmental perspective.

That's the conclusion of an original approach to possible futures that a group of international experts has been conducting the last two years: it models each scenario as a function of the type of policies put into place. The point of departure for this modeling effort is the major ecological crisis, which the planet is already experiencing.

By actualizing the description through numerous sources, the UNEP report synthesizes changes in climate, biodiversity, soils' health, water resources ... It highlights the shrinkage in available resources per inhabitant, with the available earth surface for each human being going from 7.91 hectares in 1900 to 2.02 hectares in 2005.

The rapidity of the phenomenon is emphasized: the breadth and the composition of terrestrial ecosystems that "are being modified by populations at an unprecedented speed." The experts insist on the concept of a threshold: "The cumulative effects of the continuous changes in the environment may reach thresholds that will manifest themselves as abrupt and irreversible changes." This idea of "tipping points" is applicable not only to climate change, but also to the phenomena of desertification, drops in water tables, collapse of ecosystems, etc.

Tipping Points

How the World Bank is failing to deliver real change on conditionality

In 2005 the World Bank launched a review of its conditionality policy. This was in response to growing international criticism, from developed and developing countries alike, that the World Bank was still attaching too many intrusive and, at times, harmful economic policy conditions to its development finance to poor countries.

Two years on from this important step, the World Bank is keen to represent the problem of conditionality as one that has been dealt with, and that is no longer a major problem in lending. In order to independently assess whether or not this is the case, this report, by the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad), assesses the effectiveness of the World Bank’s Good Practice Principles (GPPs) in reforming World Bank conditionality.

The report finds that the GPPs have, as hoped, had a positive impact in reducing the overall number of conditions that the World Bank attaches to its development finance in poor countries. However, unfortunately there has been very limited progress in curbing the Bank’s practice of attaching sensitive economic policy conditions like privatisation and liberalisation conditions to its lending.

Click here; to read more

WATER IS OUR RIGHT – NOT A PRIVILEGE!

Water is essential to life, is best protected by local communities and citizens, and not by private companies. And therefore we must protest the potential monopolization of our source of life and behold our constitutional right

By: Vikas Adhyayan Kendra
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WHY SHOULD WE OPPOSE THE SETTING UP OF PREPAID WATER METERS

·Prepaid water meters pave the way for privatization
The World Bank’s constant use of the term cost recovery and private sector participation lays down the conditions in their lending policies. This reduces the already difficult access and affordability of clean water thus promoting the interference of water companies. Prepaid water meters are simply a tool used under private contract in order to secure profits for the shareholders, not the access to water for the users.

·Prepaid water meters changes the demand responsive nature of water management
With the possibility that one’s access to water will get cut off as soon as one cannot pay, the demand for water goes down as people will buy only how much they can really afford. This results in use of untreated water, which has further consequences on the health and hygiene of persons. It also reduces the interface that exists between the government and the consumers of water. The consumers have no mechanism to be able to address their concerns about loss of access to water once they run out of money to be able to pay for it.

·Prepaid water meters undermine public health
One is forced into making difficult trade offs between water, food, medicine, school fees, transport and other essential goods and services. Hence, all the gains that are supposed to be achieved through access to regular clean water is totally undermined as slum dwellers will have to look for alternative sources of water, which most likely will be polluted

·Are Prepaid water meters really cost effective
Despite potential management savings prepaid water meters are provided at a higher rate for users as compared to traditional billing system as these meters are high technology solutions, hence the private players will also have to recover their costs in installing and operating them

·Prepaid water meters will only widen the inequalities that exist
Water becomes an individualized marketed commodity thus eroding the social relations between families in the communities where these prepaid water meters will be set up. The shared burden of access to water is lost. These meters are provided only in areas that are poor thus securing payment from people who already have a difficulty to pay for the most basic things. The women and children are forced to go back to their traditional role of water carriers. Hence, progress hoped to achieve in gender gains and education for children is all lost.

·It violates our fundamental right to water
The human right to water has been guaranteed in our constitution and also through international covenants set up by the United Nations now. It is the responsibility of the government to provide its citizens with free access to potable water. Water is equivalent to our right to life

Private companies and the World Bank have repeatedly tried to say that all consumers have the willingness to pay for clean water. However, this is true only in the case of the people who have the ability to pay. Is this the case for the poor living in slum areas too? This argument abuses the fact that all human beings need water for basic survival. Instead these decision makers must start analyzing the ability to pay. Households should not be forced to give up food in order to buy water.

Time to say no to WB conditionalities

The World Bank president, Robert Zoellick, during his two-day visit of
Bangladesh, which ended Sunday evening, said loan conditionalities –
one of the major reasons of discontent across the world – were in fact
needed to ensure that the bank's was not 'stolen'. He insisted that
procurement regulations had to be followed by way of examples. This
was quite evidently to counter the suggestions of civil society
representatives who had met Zoellick during his visit. Civil society
has rightly questioned the necessity of lending agency funds being
pegged with conditionalities as these are seen to have a debilitating
effect on the economy while it erodes and in fact undermines the
government's sovereignty in policymaking. It has been a long standing
demand of activists and a large section of academics that the
adherence to certain prescriptions should not be the basis for
receiving lending agency funds. Instead the basis should be
achievement of certain development indicators such as disparity,
literacy, calorie intake, and child mortality.

As such, it is demanded that the lending agencies allow their clients
a free hand in developing their own policies with meaningful public
involvement which is the only means to ensure complete ownership of
the development strategy. It would then be more useful and effective
than coercing countries to formulate their poverty reduction strategy
'guided' by the lending agencies and authored by quarters faithful to
the preferred to school of neoliberal economics dictating free market,
liberalisation and privatisation. We stress that it should not be the
concern of the lending agencies whether the school or the hospital is
under private ownership or run by the state as long as the students
are educated and patients cured.

Read more, click here

India & China influential countries says World Bank

The head of the World Bank says China and India are both playing big and influential roles in formulating policies despite the two countries being under-represented when it comes to formal bank voting rights.
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World Bank Chief Praises Indian, Chinese Influence in Top Funding Agencies

In his first trip to South Asia since being named president of the World Bank, former U.S. trade representative Robert Zoellick is calling for India and China to take a larger role in the multi-national funding agency. He is rebutting criticism that the two largest nations need additional voting rights in the bank and at the International Monetary Fund to have commensurate clout with the United States, Japan and European stakeholders.
When the Indian and Chinese executive directors speak up, regardless of the formal votes - because not many things are done in formal votes in those institutions - they're listened to because they're representing big and influential countries," he said. "And I think that's a good thing. And that's one reason why I've taken a different approach than some suggested and remain a good partner with China and India."
Zoellick says fighting theft of funds is also on his agenda.

Read more; click here.

Deconstructing Knowledge Hegemony of the World Bank

By Tanim Ahmed*, NewAge, November 5, 2007. Dhaka, Bangladesh

http://banglapraxis.wordpress.com/2007/11/05/deconstructing-knowledge-hegemony/

IT IS only natural that, after the publication of the World Bank’s flagship annual World Development Report on agriculture, its president would indicate the bank’s interest to be more involved in the sector. The finance and commerce adviser to the military-driven interim government, AB Mirza Azizul Islam, said as much at a press briefing that followed his meeting with Robert B Zoellick on Saturday. The intended involvement would understandably hinge on the findings, recommendations and conclusions of the development report that provide valuable pointers to the direction that the multilateral lending agency would like to pursue.

There is little doubt that agriculture remains the most crucial sector in developing countries, which, needless to say, are agriculture-based economies and typically have the largest segments of their populations engaged in the sector. In the case of Bangladesh, agriculture currently contributes just over a fifth of the GDP but employs over half the labour force. At least a third of the population is dependent on this sector for their livelihoods. Since most of the rural poor, who are among the most marginalised and deprived, are engaged in agriculture, it is intuitively posited that a sustainable agriculture which is profitable would benefit them and contribute to reduction of poverty and the ever-widening disparity. It would, however, be important to ascertain how exactly investment in agriculture would lead to poverty reduction and human development. The development report does not touch upon the issue and suggests that any improvement of agricultural commerce, in whatever form or mode, would lead to poverty reduction, without clearly establishing the link between agricultural growth, suggested mode of innovation and transformation and poverty reduction.

Most controversial is perhaps the unquestioning support to fully exploit the benefits of biotechnology and genetically modified organisms that the development report provides. To strengthen its case the report draws upon the experience of Bt cotton without mentioning the devastating effect it has had on the livelihoods of thousands of farmers in India. The Deccan Development Society, which works with grassroots farmers, has convinced the government of Andhra Pradesh, an Indian province where farmers had been the worst hit, to kick out Monsanto that had developed and marketed the seeds of Bt cotton. There were reports of angry farmers vandalising the local offices of the biotech multinational. None of it was mentioned in the report, though.

Such omissions, however glaring or minute, which contradict a foregone conclusion, as internal reviews and external research prove, are largely by design rather than by default. The nagging suspicion among the critics of the multilateral lending agencies that their research was not entirely reliable became all the stronger when Joseph Stiglitz had to leave his position of the chief economist of the World Bank, which also claims to be the world’s knowledge bank, after a difference of opinion with the US Treasury about the contents of another World Development Report, Attacking Poverty, in 2000. That report turned out to be one that had been used for several years to decide upon the right policies for poverty reduction. There have been several other untimely exits of senior researchers who did not quite toe the line, including William Easterly and Ravi Kanbur.

Robin Broad’s article on how the World Bank ensured ‘paradigm maintenance’ through its research was a severe blow to the credibility of this bank’s research. ‘Research, Knowledge, and the Art of “Paradigm Maintenance”: The World Bank’s Development Economics Vice-Presidency (DEC)’ was published in the Review of International Political Economy in August 2006. Broad, a professor at the School of International Service at American University, concluded, after a ‘look inside’ the department concerned and two dozen interviews of current and former staff of the bank, that ‘through its research, the World Bank has played a critical role in the legitimisation of the neo-liberal free-market paradigm over the past quarter century and its research department has been vital to this role. As activists working on the World Bank explore which parts of the Bank should be eliminated or reformed, they should look closely at the Bank’s research department as well as its external affairs department which disseminates broadly this less than objective research.’

She refers to the much-cited work of David Dollar that apparently ‘exemplifies the “paradigm-maintenance” role.’ It basically posited that it was empirically proved that countries committed to liberalisation, privatisation and the free market — in others words, the firm believers of the Washington Consensus — achieved higher growth than those who were averse to globalisation and the free market. Broad describes six mechanisms – hiring, promotion, selective application of rules, discouraging dissenting views and manipulation of data – by which the development economics vice-presidency performed in the role of perpetuating the imperialist hegemony.

Soon after came the damning blow by way of an internal evaluation of the World Bank’s research between 1998 and 2005 headed by Angus Deaton, a professor of economics at Princeton University. This evaluation slated two articles by Dollar, including the one that Broad discusses, as being flawed and concluded that the lending agency had placed undue importance on just one paper to advocate policy setting. The other paper that this panel criticised was one which concluded that aid is more effective in countries with good policies. Through interviews of previous and current staff of the World Bank the panel found that research which challenged the agency’s goals or operations was actively discouraged and subjected to endless reviews. The panellists also said conclusions of some of its flagship publications, such as the World Development Report, were negotiated earlier and the entire exercise was conducted to prove those conclusions. The panel rightly observed that these publications, although based on flawed research, were disseminated by the World Bank with much zeal and enthusiasm and have a direct bearing on decisions that policymakers take across the world. Its publications go on to form the opinion of an inordinately large number of development practitioners, bureaucrats and politicians who would then sincerely act as tools that further agency’s agenda on their own.

When Mirza Aziz was asked about the people’s tribunal on Saturday on the lending agencies — announced on the same day as the arrival of Zoellick — he pointed out that these organisations provided almost half of the development budget. His questioning manner suggested that the finance adviser would only be convinced with robust analyses of the economic effect of halving the development programmes of the government. One, however, wonders if he had the same attitude during his meeting with Zoellick or Thomas Rumbaugh when the IMF delegation visited Bangladesh in September. It is painfully clear that the finance adviser and his colleagues running the government would unquestioningly abide by a certain agricultural policy that the World Bank suggests despite the contradictory opinion from local economists and experts as they have in the case of the precautionary monetary policy prescribed by the International Monetary Fund. Surely, Mirza Aziz did not ask for a robust analysis of the agency’s conclusion.

Furthermore, to maintain this intellectual hegemony, the World Bank has begun to produce a far higher number of publications on development and poverty reduction since the introduction of the poverty reduction strategy paper. Besides providing the guideline for its preparation, the World Bank ensures that its agenda is fully reflected by the ‘home grown’ poverty reduction strategy by ensuring that an academic who is within its fold is charged with authoring the report. The volumes of publications are merely pointers of how to devise development policies.

While the poverty reduction strategy of Bangladesh is supposedly ‘home grown’ and while the decisions to privatise public sector jute mills or increase of fuel prices were also taken by the incumbents, they typically resemble exactly what those agencies had prescribed or would have prescribed. Although there are numerous studies, research and practical examples from other countries that have industrialised and developed by not following the prescriptions of the lending agencies, decision makers hardly take them into cognisance.

That the international financial institutions only look to further the corporate interests of large multinationals based in countries that drive these agencies has been pointed out repeatedly. For instance the Asian Development Bank provides funds for infrastructure, roads and highways because it would only increase the demand for cars in Bangladesh. Provided that an overwhelming proportion of the cars in Bangladesh are manufactured by Japanese companies, Japan would naturally be interested in helping such a market to build more roads.

Although the WB president appointment is typically linked with the foreign policy interests of the lending agency, such matters are hardly questioned around the world. It is due to the hegemony of knowledge that these agencies together create and perpetuate through the popular media.

One of the goals of the People’s Tribunal on WB-IMF-ADB is to point these out and create a general awareness among the people so that they raise such questions. It is this myth of omnipotence in development research that the tribunal would want to deconstruct through presentation of cases with exhaustive and convincing evidence as was mentioned during its announcement. People in other parts of the world are increasingly questioning these lending agencies. They are being rejected from Latin America after years of persecution through the neo-liberalist paradigm that eventually ensure annihilation of the marginalised communities and prevalence of large capital increasing disparity, which is quite visible in Bangladesh too. These agencies are faced with strong opposition in East Asia where countries engage in serious negotiations. The IMF prescriptions have already elicited an unprecedented note of protest from the top business bodies and chambers of commerce in Bangladesh. Organisers of the tribunal rightly believe it is time to send a clear message that the policies imposed upon the government will be questioned and challenged.

*Tanim Ahmed can be reached at: tanimahmed@gmail.com

World Bank Cuts Aid to Iran

According to the New York Times, the World Bank has suspended $5.4 million in earthquake and other humanitarian aid to Iran due to US Sanctions. Fettered by processes in the United Nations, the US has used its special leverage in the World Bank to impose its will on the Iranian nation. Additionally, the US has barred US dollar transactions with the four largest Iranian banks, in its crackdown on the nation, impacting the World Bank's ability to find other sources for its projects.

For more information on the US role in WB policy in Iran see:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/world/middleeast/04sanctions.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

People’s Tribunal against WB, IMF, ADB announced in Bangladesh

NewAge, November 4, 2007. Dhaka, Bangladesh

Academics, economists, politicians and activists jointly announced the formation of a people’s tribunal against the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the Asian Development Bank on Sunday.

The announcement was made at a press briefing at the National Press Club in Dhaka, a few hours before the arrival of the World Bank president, Robert Zoellick.The tribunal’s national preparatory committee was convened after former justice, Golam Rabbani, announced its formation.

Anu Muhammad, professor of economics at Jahangirnagar University, briefly outlined the plan of action while presenting the concept note. He said in the next six months there will be investigations into the effects that the lending agencies have had on various sectors including jute, water, power and energy, health, education and agriculture.

These investigations will then be used to build up cases against the agencies at the tribunal which will be headed by former justices. He said the investigative process would naturally be as inclusive as possible and the tribunal would try to involve people from the entire cross-section of society.

The people’s committee would include researchers, economists, educationists, politicians and members of various professional bodies.

‘The policy prescriptions of the lending agencies have destroyed Bangladesh’s potential for development and are merely another form of colonisation. The People’s Tribunal will try to find the ways and means of breaking the shackles that the lending agencies have wrapped around our country,’ said Anu.

MM Akash, professor of economics at Dhaka University, said, ‘Through the work of the tribunal and the tribunal itself, we want to tell the lending agencies, “this far and no further”. It is time we turned around and resisted them.’

Golam Rabbani, who presided over the briefing, said, ‘This is a fight against capitalist imperialism that the agencies advance on behalf of their masters.’

M Anisur Rahman, a former pro vice-chancellor of Rajshahi University, expressed wholehearted solidarity with the initiative and urged the organisers to ensure that the tribunal is genuinely a people’s tribunal, because the involvement of the general masses was imperative to make it effective and its verdicts heard and regarded by everyone.

KAM Saduddin, a former professor of sociology of Dhaka University, said, ‘It is indeed the people’s demand that such a tribunal should be formed. The instances of secret and confidential agreements between the government and other parties in the name of the people are numerous. This tribunal will be one of the means to bring about some accountability in this regard.’

Faiz Ahmed, a noted journalist and writer, said although such an initiative could have been taken earlier, it is never too late. ‘We understand the harmfulness of the ill-motivated lending agencies. And the People’s Tribunal is only the outcome of that awareness.’

A number of noted citizens and intellectuals have expressed solidarity with the tribunal and agreed to be a part of it. They include Habibur Rahman, a former chief justice and also a former chief adviser of a caretaker government, Serajul Islam Chowdhury, a professor of English of Dhaka University, and Professor Muzaffar Ahmad, a former teacher of economics who is currently the chairman of Transparency International’s Bangladesh chapter. The tribunal also enjoys the support of a large number of progressive and left-leaning political organisations, business quarters, non-governmental organisations and intellectuals.

Source link: http://banglapraxis.wordpress.com/2007/11/04/people’s-tribunal-against-wb-imf-adb-announced-in-bangladesh/

New loan worth $944 million dollar to India

India in the past has borrowed $ 51982854096* from World Bank for various projects, do we still need more?
* (source : World Bank)

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The World Bank on Friday inked three loan agreements with India for a total sanction of $944 million for strengthening the rural finance system, vocational training programmes and community-based water management projects.
According to the agreements signed here, the multilateral agency would provide $ 600 million for boosting rural cooperative credit projects, $ 280 million for supporting 400 ITIs over four years and $ 64 million for water tank management projects in Karnataka.
The agreements were inked by Finance Ministry Joint Secretary Madhusudan Prasad and World Bank Country Director Isabel Guerrero in the presence of Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick, who is on a three-day visit to India. “The three projects, signed on Friday, reflect the Central Government’s priority in rejuvenating the rural economy,” Mr. Chidambaram said on the occasion.

Read more, click here

World Bank assures more debt to Maharashtra (India)

The Maharashtra Goverment plans to make Mumbai a metropolis city by taking loan from the World Bank.
Read the following report
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World Bank assures to consider more loans to Maharashtra

World Bank on Thursday assured Maharashtra government that it would consider granting loans for its various projects like transformation of Mumbai and building infrastructure in the state.
World Bank President Robert B Zoellick gave this assurance after the government sought financial assistance from the Bank to the tune of USD six billion for the development of Mumbai Metropolitan Region.
The government has prepared a business plan of USD 60 billion which was presented before the World Bank group. The government made a presentation before the World Bank group outlining the vision of Mumbai in the presence of chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh at his official residence Varsha. The presentation described how it wants to transform Mumbai into a world class metropolis with a vibrant economy and a globally comparable quality of life for all its citizens.
The areas where the assistance was sought in the state included enhancing irrigation potential, development of modern urban infrastructure, provision of sustainable drinking water, strengthening and expanding rural health infrastructure etc.

World Bank Chief Robert Zoellick in India

World Bank's new chief to review the ground realities in India

Will the World Bank continue to support the state agencies despite their tardy implementation of various infrastructure projects in Mumbai? Answer to this question may be found on Thursday when World Bank’s new chief Robert Zoellick comes calling to Mumbai to review the ground realities. The bank has been a major contributor to the city’s biggest-ever comprehensive transport management plan — Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP).
The nearly Rs 5,000-crore project which began in 2002 was designed as a first and urgent step towards improving physical infrastructure in rail and road transportation. Besides MUTP, the state government has a slew of projects lined up for Mumbai which are awaiting funding.

Read in detail, click here
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Is the new World Bank chief coming to justify World Bank or to put India in more debt by sanctioning more loans?

An Alternative to Debt Slavery - The Bank of the South

Hugo Chavez announced his idea for a Banco del Sur, or Bank of the South, as part of his crusade against the institutions of international capital he calls "tools of Washington." With seven founding member-states - Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Ecuador
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In July, 2004, the IMF and World Bank commemorated the 60th anniversary of their founding at Bretton Woods, NH to provide a financial framework of assistance for the postwar world after the expected defeat of Germany and Japan. With breathtaking hypocrisy, an October, 2004 Development Committee Communique stated: "As we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Bretton Woods Institutions....we recommit ourselves to supporting efforts by developing countries to pursue sustainable growth, sound macroeconomic policies, debt sustainability, open trade, job creation, poverty reduction and good governance." Phew.

In fact, for 63 hellish years, both these institutions achieved mirror opposite results on everything the above comment states. From inception, their mission was to integrate developing nations into the Global North-dominated world economy and use debt repayment as the way to transfer wealth from poor countries to powerful bankers in rich ones.

The scheme is called debt slavery because new loans are needed to service old ones, indebtedness rises, and borrowing terms stipulate harsh one-way "structural adjustment" provisions that include:

-- privatizations of state enterprises;
-- government deregulation;
-- deep cuts in social spending;
-- wage freezes or cuts;
-- unrestricted free market access for foreign corporations;
-- corporate-friendly tax cuts;
-- crackdowns on trade unionists; and
-- savage repression for non-believers under a system incompatible with social democracy.

Everywhere the scheme is the same: huge public wealth transfers to elitist private hands, exploding public debt, an ever-widening disparity between the super-rich and desperate poor, and an aggressive nationalism to justify huge spending on security for aggressive surveillance, mass incarceration plus repression and torture for social control.

Read the alternatives and future prospects of the Bank, click here.

NGOs ask ADB to postpone consultations on safeguard policy draft

Forty-two non-governmental organizations have written to the Asian Development Bank's (ADB) Environment Division requesting that the ADB to delay the start of consultations on its Safeguard Policy Update (SPU) process.
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In a letter to the Asian Development Bank's Environment Division, non-governmental organizations raised substantial concerns about recent developments with the Safeguard Policy Update (SPU) process, calling into question the possibility of genuine participation by civil society organizations. It reminds the ADB to honour its previous commitments about the process of these consultations.

The NGO letter raises concerns around the dates of the ADB's regional consultations, citing conflicts with the United Nations Climate Change Convention meetings; its inability thus far to provide translations of the draft Safeguard Policy Statement; and a general lack of information about the design and format of the proposed consultations. The letter calls for:

• a rescheduling of the Southeast Asia, East Asia, Central Asia and Mekong regional consultations;
• translation of the draft SPS into key national langauges, and translations made available at least 30 days ahead of the respective consultation;
• circulation of the full participants lists for all consultations; and
• more information on the structure and format of the consultations.

NGO Forum on ADB Safeguards Consultations Postponement Letter , click here

Former World Bank employee blames the Bank for damaging the Planet

My former employers, the World Bank, are damaging the planet and punishing the poor: Robert Goodland
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How to aid destruction

I worked as environmental adviser for the World Bank Group, headquartered in Washington, for 23 years. I joined because I believed the bank wanted to improve the lot of the poor and conserve the environment. Before going to Washington I did an environmental study for the government of Tucurui, the first big dam in Amazonia. A vast part of the forest was flooded, so I saw at first hand the huge environmental and social cost of misguided development projects.

The bank knew how impassioned I was but hired me none the less. I thought I would work with colleagues to prevent blunders in the future. Indeed, we achieved a lot. Perhaps our greatest feat was having the bank adopt a suite of social and environmental policies to be applied to all projects.
The bank also adopted policies for reducing poverty directly, instead of relying on "trickle-down" economics. In 2000 I was thrilled when James Wolfensohn, then president of the bank, led it to pursue the UN's Millennium Development Goals. Assessing risks and impacts, we failed to stop the bank funding ExxonMobil's oil pipeline in Chad and Cameroon, but managed to prevent it supporting China's Three Gorges dam.

Progress faltered in the late 90s. Most social and environmental policies were gutted, and those that remain are no longer being rigorously followed. During the Wolfowitz presidency, policy work on the two key challenges of population and climate change was crippled. While governments around the world are regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant, the bank is not yet doing anything like this. The bank has encouraged India to resume investing in coal and nuclear energy. Social and environmental policies have been handed over to developing countries to implement - or not, as the case may be. The bank's private sector affiliate, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), is backing oil palm plantations in Indonesia and cutting protective mangrove forests. Among the worst is financing for monoculture soya plantations in Amazonia, even though soya is suicide for Brazil's rich agricultural lands.

To read in detail,click here

Public Hearing on The World Bank in Hague

The Hague, 21 October, 2007

DECLARATION

Upon request from the World Bank Campaign Europe, a Public Hearing was
convened on October 15 in the Hague, The Netherlands under the auspices
of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal to provide a forum to assess the
performance of the World Bank in the last 15 years.

The Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) in continuity with the Russell
Tribunal supported by the Lelio Basso Foundation, has the stated goal of
giving public profile and a juridical qualification to violations of
fundamental rights that do not find a proper redress at the
institutional level. It bases its actions on the Universal Declaration
of Peoples’ Rights of Algiers, 1976.

The PPT held specific sessions in Berlin in 1988 and Madrid in 1994 to
assess World Bank and International Monetary Fund activities and roles
against their impact on peoples’ rights. Other sessions have also taken
place that are relevant to the specific area of work and analysis of the
later Hearing, addressing the challenges posed by the globalized economy
to peoples’ rights and self-determination.

The latest session held in Vienna in May 2006 within the Enlazando
Alternativas 2 process, dealt with the responsibilities of European
Transnational Companies (TNCs) in Latin America. It analysed cases of
the privatisation of public utilities and the extraction of natural
resources. It pointed out the “complicity of European governments that
support their TNCs“ and the role of international institutions such as
the World Bank, the WTO (the World Trade Organisation) and the
International Monetary Fund. The last of a series of hearings held by
the PPT Chapter in Colombia, focusing on the oil sector, acknowledged
the relevance of the concept of ecological debt when dealing with the
responsibilities of European TNCs.

At the end of September 2007, an Independent People’s Tribunal on the
World Bank took place in India. Finally, a few days before the The Hague
Hearing, another PPT session was held in Managua, Nicaragua, on the
Spanish Company Union Fenosa.

The later hearing in The Hague was an important opportunity to continue
developing new approaches to the current area of activity, by deepening
the analysis of the World Bank’s role in various countries of the Global
South.

Read the detail declaration and next steps, click here

World Banks response to the depositions presented at the Tribunal in New Delhi

In response to some of the depositions at the Independent Peoples Tribunal (IPT) on the World Bank( 21-24 September) at JNU in New Delhi), the World Bank has uploaded a document on their website.

Its an interesting read. It includes answers such as 'The World Bank definitely has not recommended the privatization of water supply services in India'.

To read in detail, click here.

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Q. Does the Bank promote the privatization of basic services like water supply, electricity, healthcare and schooling?

The World Bank believes that there is no single approach that can improve basic services as varied as water, power, health, and education. However for these services to improve, especially for the poor, we do believe that greater accountability of service providers – whether public or private - is a key element.

•Electricity: The World Bank believes that it is neither desirable nor possible to have a single solution for improving the delivery of electricity services. Countries will need to leverage skills, financial resources and techniques which are available in the public and private sectors, and indeed in communities themselves, to meet the growing demand for electricity services. As is already happening, optimal delivery of electricity services will need to be tailored to the existing circumstances and will require a suitable, and evolving, form of public, private and community partnership.

•Urban Water Supply: The World Bank definitely has not recommended the privatization of water supply services in India. In fact, the reality on the ground is that provision of drinking water supply services in India has undergone a de-facto privatization. Urban residents make their own private provision for water by digging tubewells, adding storage tanks and infrastructure for pumping and purifying water in their homes, as well as buying bottled drinking water and water from tanker trucks. Residents are paying a high price to augment unreliable, inefficient and unsafe water as it is currently supplied, and it is the poor who suffer most from the current state of affairs.

•As it does for other urban services, the World Bank recommends that water supply utilities be run in a professional manner, are financially sustainable, and ensure affordable supply for those who cannot pay. It recognizes that the public sector must retain primary responsibility for ensuring reliable, affordable and safe water supply to India's citizens. For this reason, the World Bank recommends that the government retains ownership of water supply infrastructure and regulates water resources. The government has a long history of contracting with private sector firms to design and construct water systems and to provide goods and services. Hence, direct engagement by the government of the private sector to help improve efficiency, reliability and quality of water supply services would be much more effective and affordable than the de facto privatization that is now the norm in Indian cities.

Hundreds say World Bank needs an oil change

Global coalition calls for an end to ‘oil aid’

The End Oil Aid statement and list of endorsements are available at: www.endoilaid.org/globalcall.
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More than 200 organisations from 56 countries are calling on the World Bank and other international financial institutions to end subsidies to the oil industry. In a statement released today, the groups refer to ‘oil aid’ as one of the most glaring barriers to fighting climate change and addressing energy access in developing countries.

In 2007, the private-sector lending arm of the World Bank provided more than $645 million to oil and gas companies. This is an increase of at least 40 per cent from 2006. “The World Bank’s approach to climate change and energy is inconsistent and contradictory,” said Jennifer Kalafut of NGO Oil Change International. “Despite commitments to cut global greenhouse gas emissions, it continues to increase support for oil extraction projects around the world.”

In 2006, the World Bank increased its energy sector commitments from $2.8 billion to $4.4 billion. Oil, gas and power sector commitments account for 77 per cent of the total energy sector programme while ‘new renewables’ account for only 5 per cent.“The oil industry includes some of the most profitable companies in the world,” said Petr Hlobil of the CEE Bankwatch Network based in the Czech Republic . “Why is the World Bank using development assistance earmarked for poverty reduction to subsidise oil, when investment is desperately needed in renewable energy sources?”

The Bank’s support to the oil sector is also highly inequitable. While the majority of its oil projects are designed for export to wealthy countries, 1.6 billion people, including 500 million in sub-Saharan Africa , still lack access to electricity. “By funding these oil projects the World Bank is undermining its own goals of fighting energy poverty and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It is also perpetuating problems of conflict and human rights violations often associated with extractive projects, as in the case of the Chad-Cameroon pipeline,” said Korinna Horta from Environmental Defense, a U.S-based NGO.

The hundreds of groups and affected communities that have signed this statement are demanding that the World Bank and other public financial institutions stop financing oil projects. They assert that development assistance should be tackling the issue of energy poverty and building clean energy pathways rather than subsidising big oil.

Faulty HIV Test Kits Funded by World Bank in India

Dr. Kunal Saha, a former consultant to the Department of Institutional Integrity (INT) at the Bank and now a client of the Government Accountability Project (GAP), has produced data showing the Second National HIV/AIDS Control Project in India has purchased and distributed bogus test kits. Dr. Saha has found that the kits, distributed by Monozyme, Ltd., show "false negative" results: HIV-infected blood samples appear to be 'clean' and suitable for transfusion.

A recognized expert in the field of HIV/AIDS research with two decades of clinical and research experience, Dr. Saha serves as an associate professor at Colombus Children's Hospital in Ohio.

Complaints about the kits first surfaced as long ago as 2004, but the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) in India did nothing. In 2006, when the alarm spread to the press in India in Europe, NACO admitted that there had been a problem with some Monozyme kits, but argued that it had been confined to the state of West Bengal and the kits had been withdrawn.

But Dr. Saha found Monozyme kits in use for testing blood in the state of Chhattisgarh in April, 2007. When he spoke to the press, however, in July, 2007, the Bank distanced itself from his information, saying "The ongoing review has not substantiated any fraud involved with the kits to date.” NACO seconded the conclusion and sought Bank support: "The World Bank has not complained to NACO at all about defective HIV-kits being used in India."

After Saha presented his findings to the INT team and a senior public health official for the Bank on South East Asia in August in Washington, D.C., the lead investigator wrote him to say, "We recognize the need to follow up quickly on the issues you have raised and to that end would like to use your information in discussions with people outside the Bank." Then, nothing.

Yesterday, the story changed. In response to a Washington Post reporter's questions about the kits, the same health official who heard Saha's August presentation said that the Bank had no specific evidence that HIV had been transmitted in India because of faulty diagnostic tests.

This simply muddies the water. Dr. Saha is not making this specific charge. He can't. In order to know whether there has been transmission, the Bank, together with NACO, must identify the hospitals that used these kits and the donors whose blood was tested. They must then retest the blood and find the false negatives. Finally they must determine which of these people subsequently donated blood and track it to the patients who recieved HIV positive transfusions.

This has not been done, but Saha has presented data that show that it should be. In the meantime, the kits may still be in use.

‘Privatisation puts too much wealth in too few hands’ - Isabel Guerrero

The World Bank’s new Country Head Isabel Guerrero admits failures and flags the need for changes in a candid conversation with SANKARSHAN THAKUR

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main34.asp?filename=Bu131007PRIVATISATION.asp
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TEHELKA: Tell us, Ms Guerrero, why does the World Bank continue to be such a bad word in India?
Guerrero: I understand why you ask that but I really don’t know, I am trying to understand that, I want to. I have been having lots of conversations, meeting people outside the Bank, from civil society, from the NGO sector, in order to get a sense. We have also done some perception surveys — as you come in, it is a great time to define your agenda, and a lot of that could be based on perceptions outside; those guide me at least in understandinghow effective we can be.

So what do these findings tell you?
Some of the sense that I get is that there is some misinformation. The Bank has advanced a lot in the last 10 years, although it still has a long way to go

What kind of misinformation?
Well, we had sessions in which we were told that we are lending huge amounts of money, that we are a big part of India’s debt, that we were very expensive, that we run governments (laughs) — things like that.

Lots of people do think the World Bank hugely influences government.
As a perception that is probably true but I think most of that is popular perception, not the reality. People don’t realise that we are a very small part of each programme. To give you a sense, in the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, we are only 10 percent of the total funds. Then, on the costs, we are supposed to be very expensive. But to give you an example from last year, the lending was $3.8 billion. Of that 1.8 billion was from the IBRD (the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development), which offers more commercial terms. So, on average, the cost of the loans was 2.25 percent, which is very low compared to other sources of funding. India also has a very very low percentage of debt. India is a very large country, we are really small in India.

There are issues about your opposition to subsidies, privatisation issues. People get very agitated about them. There was a tribunal held recently at JNU at which many of these allegations were brought forward. I know you have stock answers on these, but can we go a little deeper…
On subsidies, there were three clear areas in our poverty report. One had to do with empowerment, another with subsidies to the poor and the last to do with the droughts. On subsidies, we think they are a very good thing, they should be available to the poor in a transparent way. Subsidies to the rich in a country that has so many poor? I do not think that is a good thing. Give them to the poor. If you don’t it will go against social cohesion.

Water? Privatisation?
That is big, and world-wide. When your children and my children are grown up, the wars are going to be about water. At least in Latin America and I am sure in India too, water has a huge religious meaning. It is mother, it is soul, source of fertility, life. The meaning of water in the collective conscience is very important and therefore one has to be very careful in getting into it. It’s a lightning-rod issue, you touch it and phew!! The Delhi Jal Board issue was, I think, not well-handled from the Bank‘s side. I had a similar situation in Bolivia and in both cases the same thing happened. The Bank was accused of having pushed the privatisation of water, and in both cases it had not happened. In Bolivia we had reports alerting the government not to privatise water —you do it and tariffs are going to go up 400 percent —and it happened. Yet we were not heard. We made mistakes with the Delhi Jal Board, but it was impossible to be heard that we were not pushing for privatisation. So, we have learnt a lot from this, we have.

Read more on the following link :http://www.tehelka.com/story_main34.asp?filename=Bu131007PRIVATISATION.asp

‘TRIBUNAL CHARGES BANK WITH SERIOUS VIOLATIONS OF DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS AND SOVEREIGNTY’

PRESS RELEASE
World Bank Officials Refuse to be Held Accountable

New Delhi: The four day Independent Peoples Tribunal (IPT) on the World Bank in India concluded here today hearing numerous depositions indicting the Bank’s policy and project interventions in India. Over six hundred people from communities, social movements, research institutes, NGOs and universities attended the proceedings. The Tribunal, supported by the Jawaharlal University’s Teachers Association and Students’ Union was held in the university premises.

The IPT invited the World Bank two weeks ago and while they did agree to make a presentation responding to some of the evidence, they failed to show up despite provision of adequate space and time by the organisers. They stated on their website that they had taken this decision because they are not accountable to the Tribunal process. We must record our shock at their blatant disregard of any need to be accountable to civil society and to a Jury comprising retired justices of the Supreme and High Courts as well as leading writers, academics, religious leaders and activists.

In its preliminary findings, the IPT observed the Bank had an undue and disturbingly negative influence in shaping India’s national policies disproportionate to its contribution, financial or otherwise.

While India is the world’s largest single cumulative recipient of World Bank assistance, with lending totaling about $60 billion (Rs. 2,40,000 crores) since 1944, current annual borrowing amounts to less than 1% of the country’s GDP. The loans, however, have been used as leverage to bring about important policy changes and impose conditionalities in areas such as governance reform, health, education, electricity, water and environment- many of these with obvious political and social consequences. The loans also legitimize substantial additional funding from a diversity of bilateral and multilateral donors such as the Asian Development Bank and Department for International Development (DFID-UK). The Bank’s loans have caused extensive social and environmental harm from mass displacement in the Narmada valley to loss of livelihoods of traditional fishworkers in places such as Barwani.

It was noted that such overbearing influence on India’s policy making was in violation of the World Bank’s own Rules of Association, which mandate it to be an apolitical institution that should not interfere in political processes of any member country. Further, the IPT depositions stated that the presence of former Bank officials in senior government positions was unacceptable and involved conflicts of interest.


UNDERMINING DEMOCRACY:
Vice Chairman of the Kerala State Planning Board Professor Prabhat Patnaik in his deposition cited the example of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (NURM), which is a World Bank designed project. In the Kerala NURM project, the state government, he said, was being forced to accept a conditionality to reduce stamp duties to 5% from the earlier 15-17%. To avail a loan of about 1000 crores, Kerala would lose up to Rs.7000 crores of government revenue.

Vinay Baindur of the Bangalore based Collaborative for the Advancement of Studies in Urbanism (CASUMM) showed evidence of how the Karnataka Economic Restructuring Loan (KERL) resulted in the conversion of a state government and its economy into a corporatised entity meant to generate funds for “private sector and enterprise development”. ‘The $250 million loan resulted in far reaching changes; the closure/privatisation of the public sector, nearly two lakh permanent employees were forced to take Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) payments.

Further, the restructuring process led to a steep rise in farmer suicides; many of those who committed suicide did so because they were unable to pay the arrears in power costs that were suddenly slapped on them on account of power tariff hikes. “The withdrawal of subsidies for agriculture led to a sharp rise in the costs of cultivation”, argued Baindur in his deposition.

Jury member and scientist Meher Engineer said that he found the depositions on how the Bank forced inappropriate technology on India such as incinerators especially damning. ‘Given the well researched evidence that I have heard it is hard to imagine any role for the World Bank in the environment sector, he said. ‘The Bank is pro-rich, pro-urban and anti-environment’, he concluded.

The IPT was organized by an inclusive platform consisting of over 60 national and local groups (see list below). Activists, academicians, policy analysts and project affected communities presented evidence against the World Bank in over 26 sectors from 21-24 September. Jury members included historian Romila Thapar, writer Arundhati Roy, activist Aruna Roy, former Supreme Court Justice P B Sawant, former Finance Secretary S P Shukla, former Water Secretary Ramaswamy Iyer, scientist Meher Engineer, economist Amit Bhaduri, Thai spiritual leader Sulak Sivaraksa and Mexican economist Alejandro Nadal amongst others.

WORLD BANK AND GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MISSING IN ACTION:
But in response to the depositions the Bank posted a Q&A document on its India home page. In the document, the Bank makes the outrageous claim that, “The World Bank definitely has not recommended the privatization of water supply services in India”. It is particularly worrisome that the Bank has to repeat a series of untruths and not own responsibility for the extensive harms they have caused.

In a sign of convergence with the Bank, the Government of India also failed to send even a single representative to the event, despite personal invitations, emails and faxes being sent 2 weeks in advance to several Government officials at all ministries that borrow money from the World Bank.


PUSHING FOR ELECTRICITY PRIVATISATION:
In the 1990s, 20-30% of World Bank loans in India went to the energy sector. Orissa had the dubious distinction of being the first state to receive World Bank loans for restructuring the sector. Sreekumar N, from the Pune based Prayas Energy Group argued that based on World Bank advice, Orissa spent upto Rs.306 crores for foreign consultants, ignoring local expertise. The consultants recommended the privatisation of distribution and the American firm AES that took over distribution in the central zone behaved in a high handed manner and ultimately exited the state in 2001.

BANKS TOXIC COLONIALISM:
Nityanand Jayaraman of the Chennai based Corporate Accountability Desk in his desposition before the jury said, ‘The Bank is perpetrating toxic colonialism by funding discredited and polluting technology interventions’. As evidence he presented cases where the Bank has promoted the setting up of more than 88 Common Effluent Treatment Plants, more than 90 percent of which were shown to have failed to meet environmental norms by the Central Pollution Control Board.

JUST THE BEGINNING:
Wilfred D’ Costa, General Secretary of the Indian Social Action Forum(INSAF) one of the convening groups of the IPT said, ‘The tribunal has been useful since it has seen a convergence of social movements, unions, academicians, researchers and struggle groups from across the country. Our next steps would be to use this platform to create a broad based political struggle against neo-liberalism and work towards an India without institutions such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank’.

Press Release : 22 September 07

Flat No.14, Supreme Enclave, Mayur Vihar-I, Delhi-110091

www.worldbanktribunal.org

PRESS RELEASE
22 September 2007

Changing Role of the World Bank
New Delhi:
Today is the second day of the Independent Peoples Tribunal on the World Bank Group in India, which got underway at New Delhi yesterday at a packed auditorium at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).

Addressing the new concerns regarding World Bank operations Dr. Prabhat Patnaik, (Deputy Chairman of Kerala Planning Commission) specified his point of view on the changing arena of operations of World Bank enforcing trade liberalisation. He further stated that this enforced trade liberalisation was perpetuating international division of labour, similar to that of the exploitative colonial form, but not exactly identical. "McNamara’s policy veils poverty alleviation and forces them to liberalise on the basis of comparative advantage and efficiency of trade," he stressed. Mr. Patnaik stated that the whole range of natural resources were privately appropriated which opened up the domain of natural resources for MNC and private appropriation. "Therefore, this is a form of ‘grabbing public and state property of accumulation through encroachment".

According to him, the World Bank operations have infiltrated both the Centre as well as the states, besides the grassroots operation of World Bank give them leverage to appropriate resources. Prof. Patnaik said that the JNNURM was a conditional package which gave a gross revenue loss of Rs. 7000-crore. “This is economic absurdity, therefore, greater state intervention and allocation on basis of social priority. This perpetuation of appropriation resulting in commodification is done with little money and major leverage".

He said that while the World Bank many have undergone a shift in emphasis, its basic thrust has not changed. "Trade liberalisation that continues to proportionate a division of labour that benefits the economic and political states nationally and globally". According to him, the World Bank is now committed to expand private control of land and natural resources. "Every where in the country we now witness the grabbing of common resources and spaces occupied by petty producers as well as the privatisation of the public sector".

Jayati Ghosh, who spoke on the issues related to the private sector, lamented that it was a matter of great concern how the World Bank was managing to be so powerful when so little of its money involved in India, less than 1% of the Indian Budget. "The bank is managing to be so powerful because it has infiltrated in Indian bureaucracy where it influences bureaucrats by organising capacity building, workshops etc. Many of our govt officials are now allowed to take a project with WB while on leave. This money, which is huge compared to Indian salaries, is tax free. Now WB is moving at the lower levels and infiltrating Zila Parishads and municipal corporations. While state governments exonerate themselves insisting on lack of funds, these zila parishads and municipal corporations are encouraged to take loans from WB and elsewhere. Thus these loans come with a number of conditionalities which finally push the agenda for privatisation", she asserted.

She added that the World Bank has increasingly been dealing with state governments who were in fiscal crisis where even a small amount of money appears to be substantial. According to her, the WB is not controlling the whole development discourse where research is essentially controlled by WB which in turn pushes its agenda. There is very little independent , objective, development research. A study by about 5-6 neo-liberal American researchers has found that WB promotes its own agenda through research and suppresses objective research. WB never put this study on its website despite its stated claims of transparency. "The essential issue today that needs to be looked into is how WB has changed and continues to change development discourse in India and elsewhere".

She also gave a critical scrutiny of the World Bank operation and stated that the enforcement of trade liberalisation should be removed. Arguments of trade liberalisation like comparative advantage cause stagnation in global division of labour and thus developed world would developed and developing world would stagnate. She refuted the comparative advantage argument on the basis of South Korean experience in setting steel plant against the World Bank recommendations. She expressed newer concerns of mis-appropriation of natural resources at grassroot level and thereby propogating privatisation. She refuse conditionality of JNNURM on the basis of commodification of natural resource. She enlightened on the following facts:

(a) World Bank being a net recipient of countries, therefore loosing its relevance as a bank
(b) World Banks infiltration into bureaucracy – “Victory over minds of people which is most significant way of World Bank operation”.
(c) World Bank engages in grassroot works on the myth of a development paradigm
(d) World Bank encourages “funny” fiscal decentralisation where Panchayat directly borrow from World Bank thereby allowing private appropriation through leverage.
(e) World Bank control over development discourse causes one sided research.

Speaking on the debt and the WB, Lidy Nacpil of Jubilee South said that our assessment on (Illegitimacy of debt) was based on critical holistic, rigorous understanding of historical procedures which convert world order into a NEO-LIBERAL regime.

Her presentation essentially talked about the illegitimacy of debt and the procedures regarding illegitimate procedures. She stated that the debt service was very large as compared to the absolute debt amount. She also stated that Indian proportion of Debt per capita debt as a percentage of GDP were lower than Philippines, Nepal, etc. She pointed out the impact of debt on hindering and diverting development expenditure. She, while presenting a critical review of debt stated that we should understand debt historical, political and economic perspective. Also illegitimacy of debt is financing damage. Illegitimacy she points out is on the basis of:
(A) Human resource
(B) Justice & fairness
(C) Accountability
(D) Sovereignty

She also pointed out that the legal structures should be modified to bring out debt illegitimacy. "Debt is power to intervene in domestic politics and says government is also a part of it," she asserted.

Mr. Viond Raina's presentation focussed on the coherence of the WB, IMF and the like bodies with the governance, structure and policy making and implementation clubbed with legislation of the nation machinatingly trapped by the above-mentioned Bretton Woods bodies. This indeed is a Machiavellian nexus with the local sense governing bodies also, which means direct imperiealism of the mindset. This hydra-headed as to penetrate into the bureaucracy who are cultivated by the WB to behave and administer conveniencing the objectives and the agenda of the WB.

V Hanumantha Rao spoke about the Andhra Pradesh, state currently in the midst of a big agitation – govt been passing out hundreds of acres of land in name of It, industry infrastructure displacing thousands – agitation due to peoples anger where the vulnerabilities of the paucity of resources in state coffers, combined with a political scenario in flux and seeking acclaim as a modern state. The WB assisted irrigation sector interventions included reduction of Ration cards by 35%, increase in power tax, water charges, entrusting the charges of water maintenance to WUAs and privatisation of the industrial sector. Democratic structures were subverted as parallel structures were created, and a Vision 2020 document drafted that contained all the recommendations and guidelines. This document though never placed before the public or peoples representatives for debate continues to drive state policies and programmes.

The second session of the day focused on the urban poor and urban development and how both are affected by policies of the World Bank. Nitin from Shahar Vikas Manch spoke about the Mumbai Urban Transport Project, funded by the World Bank, which had displaced above 19,000 families in Mumbai. Resettlement has been in distant locations, upto 30 kms away; against the promised norm of within 2 kms. The resettlement sites lack basic amenities and are simply not affordable for a large majority of the urban poor. Simpreet Singh from NAPM added to this by revealing the Rs. 350 crore scam that was uncovered in the project.

Vinay Baindur of CASUMM critiqued the JNUNRM. This urban policy subsidized the private sector growth through mechanisms like PSP and PPP. He also spoke about the strong influence of WB and IFIs in Indian urban sector reforms since 1988 which has culminated into the JNNURM.

The 4-day event is being organised by a coalition of over 60 groups in collaboration with the JNU Students Union and Teachers Association. Activists, academicians, policy analysts and project affected communities are expected to present their analysis on the World Bank in over 26 sectors to an expert jury. The tribunal will run from today till 24 September. The opening jury members at today’s panel included eminent historian Romila Thapar, Former Supreme Court Justice P B Sawant, Former Maharastra High Court Justice Suresh, Former Planning Commission member S P Shukla, Scientist Meher Engineer, Former Water Secretary Ramaswamy Iyer, Economist Amit Bhaduri and Mexican Economist Alejandro Nadal.

World Bank officials, including the Banks India Country Director Isabel Guerrero, and Government of India representatives have also been invited to the tribunal and have been given time to respond to the depositions. World Bank representatives are expected present their point of view on the closing day (24 September).







Suresh Nautiyal (09868182289)
WBG IPT Secretariat (Media)

For more information contact Harsh Dobhal (9818569021)

Independent People's Tribunal on the World Bank Group in India : Press Release 21 September

WORLD BANK GOES UNDER SCANNER AT PEOPLES TRIBUNAL

The Independent Peoples Tribunal on the World Bank Group in India got underway at New Delhi today at a packed auditorium at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). The 4 day event is being organised by a coalition of over 60 groups in collaboration with the JNU Students Union and Teachers Association. Activists, academicians, policy analysts and project affected communities are expected to present their analysis on the World Bank in over 26 sectors to an expert jury. The tribunal will run from today till 24 September. The opening jury members at today’s panel included eminent historian Romila Thapar, Former Supreme Court Justice P B Sawant, Former Maharastra High Court Justice Suresh, Former Planning Commission member S P Shukla, Scientist Meher Engineer, Former Water Secretary Ramaswamy Iyer, Economist Amit Bhaduri and Mexican Economist Alejandro Nadal.

World Bank officials, including the Banks India Country Director Isabel Guerrero, and Government of India representatives have also been invited to the tribunal and have been given time to respond to the depositions. World Bank representatives are expected present their point of view on the closing day (24 September)

Questioning the supposed Bank developmental mandate of ‘eradicating poverty’, activist Smitu Kothari of Intercultural Resources argued that the Bank in fact functioned more like a commercial bank serving corporate interests. Kothari said, ‘The Bank is the world’s largest multilateral source of equity and loan financing to private enterprises and its loans to the private sector through the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in 2006 amounted to a massive US$ 8.3 billion. ‘The Bank claims that it is an apolitical institution but even a cursory look at its Governance conditionalities such as public sector reform, creating legislation to facilitate the private sector shows that it plays a profoundly political role in the country’, he added.

Professor Arun Kumar from JNU said that due to World Bank and IMF structural adjustment conditionalities India had to undergo a complete policy overhaul after 1991. As evidence, he presented several national legislations that were overhauled after the structural adjustment programmes of the Bank; such as the RBI Act, introduction of Value Added Tax (VAT) in Andhra Pradesh and the revision of the Coal Nationalization Act. As further evidence of the influence of the Bank on domestic policy he showed how an executive summary of a World Bank document in 1990 mentioned the need for a 22% devaluation of the Indian rupee. ‘In 1991 the then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh effected exactly a 22% devaluation of the rupee.

In his deposition to the jury Supreme Court Advocate Prashant Bhushan presented evidence on how, since 1991, most of the key influential economic policy makers in India, including members of the planning commission, secretaries of the Finance Ministry and Economic Advisors to the Government have been people who have had stints at the World Bank. ‘They have moved seamlessly between the World Bank and the Government of India as if the latter were just a division of the former’, he said. Bhushan singled out the case of the current czar of economic policy Montek Singh Ahluwalia who spent the first 11 years of his career at the World Bank. Since then he has been Commerce Secretary, Finance Secretary and now Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission. ‘There are several dozen such instances and it should be of little surprise that the Bank has been able to easily impose its ideology and policies in India’, added Bhushan.

Shripad Dharamadhikari, Coordinator of Manthan Adhyayan Kendra spoke about how the Bank was looking at being a ‘politically realistic knowledge provider’ in India. This was being done through thematic and sectoral studies called AAA – Analytical and Advisory Activities – in which it is funding studies on Land, Water and Agriculture which were being used as reference documents to push its policies.

In a written deposition Professor Michael Goldman of the University of Minnesota posed the question of whose interests the Bank served. Goldman said that Northern firms continue to win a majority of the foreign procurement contracts awarded. ‘In 2003 a startlingly high 45 percent was channeled to firms in the big five countries (USA, UK, Japan, Germany and France)’, said Goldman.

Professor Anil Sadgopal traced the policy framework for education in the country and showed how the target for universalisation of elementary education was constantly shifted following the intervention of the World Bank. ‘The demarcation of certain districts in Madhya Pradesh as exclusively World Bank districts for the implementation of its DPEP programme was a gross violation of the sovereignty of the state’, he said.

The days next sessions of the tribunal will cover the Banks interventions in Water, Health and its impacts on Human Rights. Speakers who will depose on Day 2 of the tribunal include Narmada Bachao Andolan activist Medha Patkar (on Urban Development), Magsayay Awardee Arvind Kejriwal (on Delhi Water Privatisation) and Economist Jayati Ghosh (on private sector and the World Bank).

Suresh Nautiyal,
WBG IPT Secretariat (Media)

For more information contact Harsh Dobhal (9818569021)

Independent People's Tribunal on the World Bank in India : Press Release

PRESS RELEASE

500 academics, activists and experts on the World Bank including experts from abroad such as Alejandro Nadal, Professor, Colejio de Mexico, and Bruce Rich, Executive Director, will gather at JNU (21 – 24 September) at the “Independent People’s Tribunal on the World Bank Group in India”, and will hear experts and victims give testimonies on the role of World Bank in India.

The Jury will consist of eminent persons including Mahasweta Devi, Arundati Roy, Justice P.B. Sawant, Aruna Roy and 11 others. Attached is the programme.

Given below are preliminary notes on two of the issues which will form part of the deliberations. Note 1 is on sample contracts between the World Bank and State Governments. Note 2 is on Government Officials serving at the World Bank.

Note 1

SAMPLE WORLD BANK AGREEMENTS WITH STATE GOVERNMENTS SHOWING HOW THE WORLD BANK FORCED STATE GOVERNMENTS AS A CONDITIONALITY FOR LOANS TO AGREE TO CHANGING LAWS, PRIVATISING, REDUCING THE PUBLIC SECTOR ETC.

LOAN AGREEMENTS FOR ORISSA’S HEALTH SYSTEM

1. A condition of a loan to Orissa to make changes to its health system was that Orissa would continue to follow a policy of ‘user pays’ and more importantly, that it increase its charges. Such a measure invariably affected the poorest members of society and is in direct contrast with the World Bank’s stated aim to alleviate poverty. In this case, amongst many others, its policies hit the poorest the hardest.


“Orissa shall continue to implement a program for collecting user charges at district hospitals, such program to focus, inter alia, on: (a) strengthening collection of existing user charges and management arrangements; (b) implementing revised user charges in a phased manner within six months after completion of the renovation and extension of each hospital and adoption of staffing and technical norms at such hospital…”

LOAN AGREEMENT WITH ORISSA ON POWER

In the Orissa Power Restructuring Project of 1996 the World Bank also mandated privatization. In the loan agreement for that Project the Bank specified:

Orissa shall, with the participation of GRIDCO and OHPC [the publicly-owned Orissa power distribution companies]:
(a) offer a part of its equity in GRIDCO and OHPC for sale to the public under terms and conditions satisfactory to the Bank with the objective of divesting such equity in accordance with a program and timetable satisfactory to the Bank;
. . .

If the Government of Orissa was unable to sell the company at its asking price it was required to revise the conditions of its sale to make it more attractive for sale:

(c) where no tenders are received in response to such offer or those that are received are not deemed responsive by Orissa, revise the terms and conditions of such offer in a manner satisfactory to the Bank and take such other steps which shall, without prejudice to the interests of Orissa, GRIDCO and OHPC, be adequate, in the view of the Bank, to making such offers attractive for acceptance by the public.

LOAN AGREEMENT FOR ANDHRA PRADESH ON WATER PRIVATISATION

2. In return for a World Bank loan to Andhra Pradesh, the World Bank stated in its loan agreements that Andhra Pradesh would introduce a charge system for water. Again, it is evident that World Bank’s policies adversely affect the poor.

“Andhra Pradesh shall implement a system for water charge collection on a volumetric basis by WUAs on at least a pilot basis (i.e. covering about 40,000 ha) by March 31, 2001”.

In addition to introducing a ‘user pays’ system in which the government of Andhra Pradesh could not be held democratically accountable, the World Bank also made it a condition of the loan that Andhra Pradesh would cut jobs in the state government and reduce salaries of the state government’s employees.

“Andhra Pradesh shall take all the necessary measures, satisfactory to the Association and the Bank in order:
(c) to reduce employment in the state government (excluding primary education) by 1.9 percent each Fiscal Year beginning with FY 1998-99;
(d) to reduce the ratio of salary to GSDP from the estimated 5.3 percent in FY 1997-98 to no higher than 5.0 percent in FY 2002-03”


LOAN AGREEMENT WITH HARYANA ON POWER

The Haryana Power Sector Restructuring Project was a 1998 agreement between the World Bank and the Government of India and Government of Haryana aimed at restructuring and upgrading that Haryana power system. One of the ultimate goals of this restructuring was privatizing the distribution of power in Haryana. This is made clear by the conditions of subsequent loans for this project as outlined in the project’s appraisal document:

The Second Haryana Power Sector Restructuring Project (APL2; indicative amount of $ 150 million) would be considered when . . . The Government of Haryana has:
. . .
* achieved satisfactory progress in privatizing one of the distribution companies (East Zone) as a joint venture with private majority ownership; . . .
. . .
The Third Haryana Power Sector Restructuring Project (APL3) (indicative amount: $ 200 million) would be considered when . . . The Government of Haryana has:
* privatized at least two-thirds of the distribution system, e.g., at least about two-thirds of the electricity is distributed by private companies, licensed by the Regulatory Commission;
. . .
One or two additional loans (APL4 and APL5) (tentative total amount: $ 190 million) would be considered when:
* the distribution business has been fully privatized;
. . .

LOAN AGREEMENT WITH MAHARASHTRA ON WATER

The World Bank continues to try to dictate its own market-driven ideology to India even today. In 2006, the Government of Maharashtra and World Bank entered into an agreement for a loan to reform the Maharashtra water supply system under the Maharashtra Water Sector Improvement Project. The loan conditions as outlined in the Project Appraisal Document included that the Government of Maharashtra shall:

. . .
(vi) start implementation of bulk water supply and volumetric charging of irrigation water to WUAs as per their entitlement in six selected pilot schemes by no later than December 31, 2006.
(vii) rationalize water charges including irrigation charges to meet full O&M costs by no later than March 31, 2007.
. . .

Note 2

NOTE ON SENIOR GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS WHO WHILE SERVING GOI WENT ON DEPUTATION TO THE WORLD BANK ON HUGE SALARIES AND PENSIONS AND THEREAFTER RETURNED TO GOI AND ALTERED POLICIES OF GOVERNMENT IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE WORLD BANK POLICIES

The Revolving Door of the World Bank
Suborning policy and decision makers by its pocketbook
By Prashant Bhushan

Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel laureate and former Chief Economist of the World Bank in his frank critique of the World Bank and IMF, “Globalisation and its discontents”, notes that “The institutions are dominated not just by the wealthiest industrial countries but also by commercial and financial interests in those countries, and the policies of the institutions naturally reflect this”. This, he says, happens because the World Bank and other Multi-lateral financial institutions are controlled by the wealthy countries. For the WB/IMF, these countries are represented by their Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors. He goes on to say, “The Finance Ministers and Central Bank governors typically have close ties with the financial community; they come from financial firms, and after their period in government service, that is where they return. These individuals naturally see the world through the eyes of the financial community. The decisions of any institution naturally reflect the perspectives and interests of those who make the decisions; not surprisingly, the policies of the international financial institutions are all too often closely aligned with the commercial and financial interests of those in the advanced industrial countries.”

Though an insider with impeccable credentials and credibility like Stiglitz has laid bare this fact which was known by most people much earlier, yet it is obvious that the government of India’s policies regarding the revolving door between the government and the World Bank/IMF are totally oblivious to this. How else would one explain the fact that for much of the last 20 years, and particularly since 1991, many if not most of the top economic policy makers including members of the planning commission, secretaries of the Finance Ministry and Governors of the Reserve Bank have been staffers of the World Bank/IMF. They have moved smoothly and seamlessly between the World Bank/IMF and the government of India, as if the government of India were just a division of the World Bank/IMF.

Since the mid 80s it has become common to find World Bank staffers occupying key policy making positions in the Government of India. Starting with Montek Singh Ahluwalia, and Bimal Jalan, the vast majority of the key officials of the Finance Ministry and the Reserve Bank have moved seamlessly back and forth between the World Bank/IMF and the Government of India. They include such influential policy makers and Finance Secretaries such as Shankar Acharya, who like Montek started with the World Bank in the 70s and then again like him joined the government as Economic advisor in 1985. In 1990 he was back at the World Bank as Chief of the Public Economic Division till 1993, when he was appointed Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India. He was thereafter appointed to the Board of SEBI, the EXIM Bank and various other policy making bodies.

We then have Rakesh Mohan who also initially worked with the World Bank (1976-80, 1983-86) and later became Economic Advisor to the Ministry of Industry, Government of India. He then served in top positions of many policy making bodies of the government including Deputy governor of the Reserve Bank, Secretary of the Department of Economic affairs etc.

We have Parthasarthy Shome who worked at the IMF for most of the time between 1983 and 2004. In between he was called in as Chairman, Advisory group on Taxation for the 9th 5 year plan, then as Chairman of the Advisory group on Tax policy, and most recently as Special advisor to the Finance Minister (2004-2007).

We also have other persons like Ashok Lahiri, who worked for many years in the IMF before being brought in to the government as Chief Economic Advisor and then sent to the ADB as Executive Director in 2007. These are only some examples of persons who started their careers with the Bank/IMF and were brought into influential policy making positions of the Government, then allowed to move back and forth between the bank and the government as if the Government of India were just a division of the Bank/IMF). Such examples could be multiplied endlessly.

This revolving door with the Bank/IMF and the filling of most economic policy making positions of the government by these Bank staffers has allowed the bank to impose its ideology and policies on India. It has not only ensured that these policy makers are schooled in the World Bank school of economics, by allowing them to move back and forth but also ensured that the Bank/IMF retains a complete stronghold on these persons wherein they step out of line only at the cost of losing their lucrative jobs/assignments with the Bank/IMF.

In fact, key officials of the Finance Ministry and other important Ministries dealing with World Bank proposals and projects have been freely allowed to negotiate and take up jobs at the World Bank while in service and immediately after retirement. Many of them are deputed by the Government of India. These deputations also work through the network of Old boys of the World Bank occupying key positions in the government of India. Apart from deputations, there are hosts of other jobs, consultancies, assignments, even travel grants and huge honoraria paid for attending meetings of the World Bank and associated agencies. Thus, R.A. Mashelkar as DG CSIR went on at least 50 trips abroad during his tenure which were paid for by the Bank or the World Intellectual Property Organisation. For most of these trips, he was paid an honorarium of around 500 British pounds a day. As a result of this, he got more as honoraria for these trips than he got as salary from the Government of India. As DG CSIR, he presided over several policy-making committees and advised the government to (for example) amend the Patents Act in line with the needs of multinational corporations of the West. He says that he honestly believes that it is in the best interest of India as well. But, when one knows that juicy junkets, honoraria and assignments depend on whether he falls in line with the Bank and similar agencies, it is easy to convince yourself of the righteousness of the course that is likely to land you with these juicy assignments.

The officials are selected eventually by the Bank and their salaries and honoraria are decided by them, depending on their level and “utility” to the Bank. However, in all cases they are several times, usually ten times or more than, the salaries they get in India. This creates an enormous incentive for the Officials to seek World Bank jobs, assignments, consultancies and even travel grants. Since it is obvious that one is more likely to get these if one toes the World Bank line, it creates an enormous incentive for Officials to fall in line. This is particularly so for “honest” officials who see these jobs and assignments as the only legitimate way of doubling or trebling their savings in a very short while.

The Foreign Contribution Regulation Act which makes it an offence for a government official to accept any material contribution from a foreign agency also exempts the World Bank and other “United Nations agencies”. This has further smoothened the path of those seeking World Bank/IMF/ADB jobs, assignments and travel grants.

This is why there is no critical evaluation of World Bank policies and projects at the government level and they are all virtually accepted uncritically and pushed through. All this has had an enormously deforming effect on policymaking, particularly economic policymaking in the Government of India. It would not be incorrect to say that it is the World Bank, which runs the Reserve Bank, the Finance Ministry and other economic policy making bodies of this country.



For further details contact: secretariat@worldbanktribunal.org
98185 69201, 98681 82289