World Bank Out of India!

The World Bank and the Language of Development : India's National Agricultural Innovation Project

2008-09-03T17:30:00.003+05:30

A few examples from the Bank’s latest reports in India show how the language of development ignores the ground reality and make suffering sound like progress. The latest World Bank project in Indian Agriculture (of 203 projects going back to 1949) is called the National Agricultural Innovation Project. Its objectives are to

"contribute to the sustainable transformation of Indian agricultural sector from food self-sufficiency to one in which a market orientation is equally important for poverty alleviation and income generation. The specific objective is to accelerate the collaborative development and application of agricultural innovations between public research organizations, farmers, private sector and other stakeholders….The proposed project contributes to the Bank’s objectives, as expressed in the Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) 2004, to increase its lending in support of rural livelihoods and accelerating rural growth."

In a country where 49% of children are malnourished, a context where privatisation has been occurring in the sector for the past 40 years, and most tragically where farmers are committing suicide, what is the meaning of these objectives? Is a market orientation as equally important as food self-sufficiency? How exactly is the market important for poverty alleviation and income generation? The Bank’s key indicators of the success of this project will be

"the increased availability of knowledge products and public awareness messages of the National Agricultural Research System (NARS), increased collaboration with farmer, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and private sector organizations, increased availability and use of technologies that have been jointly developed between consortia partners in support of strengthened production to consumption systems and enhanced rural livelihoods, and a strengthened capacity for basic and strategic research"

This project is about increasing the existing privatization of agriculture by creating a knowledge network between the private sector, agriculture research institutes and a small number of NGOs to promote the use of corporate technologies such as genetically modified food. This project is neither about farmer livelihoods nor about food security.

World Bank's Food Security Plan Temporarily Blocked at Doha Talks

2008-07-31T07:51:00.002+05:30

The World Bank of course stands with the US on the the battle between the US and India/China over protection for small farmers, and positions it as usual by suggesting that this will solve the crisis of poverty.

Zoellicks Plan for the Food Crisis which he announced at the Food Security Summit in Rome laid out the World Bank view that "to help those in danger today and ensure that the poor do not suffer this tragedy again" the World Bank proposed a 10-point plan. The ninth point was "we should conclude a Doha World Trade Organisation deal in order to remove the distortions of agricultural subsidies and tariffs and create a more adaptable, efficient and fair global food trade. The need for rules that are agreed multilaterally has never been stronger".

See below for the latest on the WTO where the World Bank's vision of food security has been temporarily blocked.

Michele Kelley

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WTO talks fail as India and China stand up to US to 'protect' farmers

Wed, Jul 30 03:03 AM
Yahoo News

The ministerial level talks here that attempted to clinch a global trade deal failed to achieve a breakthrough after nine long and tense days of discussions mainly due to differences between the US and India on measures to protect the livelihood concerns of poor farmers in the developing world.

The talks, that form part of the seven-year-old Doha Development Round negotiations of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), also saw differences between the developed and the developing world in several market-opening commitments regarding agriculture and industrial goods.

Though a formal announcement is expected only later in the night, official sources said WTO director general Pascal Lamy clearly indicated that there was no progress in the meeting of the group of seven countries that included representatives from India, Brazil, China, the European Union, US, Japan and Australia. They said, therefore, it was highly unlikely to have any resolution of outstanding issues in a larger group of countries.

India had earlier refused to give in to attempts to weaken a measure called the Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) meant to protect poor farmers, despite enormous pressure from developed countries, especially the US. The SSM enables developing countries like India to hike agricultural tariff by imposing additional duties to protect the livelihood of its poor farmers from import surges and price declines of sensitive agricultural products like wheat and rice. But it is a contingency measure and, therefore, used only when imports are substantive.

Meanwhile, developing countries on Tuesday blamed the US for what they called its stubborn attitude in maintaining the prosperity of its subsidized farmers and said this was the main stumbling block in clinching a global trade deal.

Despite efforts between Monday and Tuesday to resolve the SSM issue using different formulations - including a proposal by Lamy and another one by the European Union - the US rejected these saying SSM would disrupt normal trade rather than protect poor farmers. Some agricultural exporting countries like Uruguay and Paraguay, too, said SSM would hurt their interests.

Meanwhile, India was backed by China and around 100 other countries at a crucial juncture in the talks when India suffered a setback as Brazil broke ranks with other developing country allies in this aspect due to its interests in the farm-export business.

China had said it would not offer any concessions on special products (SPs farm products that are subjected to minimum or no duty cuts) and SSMs as these directly affect the livelihood of its poor farmers. It wanted to demarcate rice, cotton and sugar as SPs. On SSM, India turned down a WTO proposal under which developing countries could impose additional safeguard duties only if the import surge is 40% more than the average of previous three years.

India had told the WTO that if developing countries were forced to wait till a 40% rise in imports, it would wreak havoc on the livelihood of the most vulnerable farmers due to cheap farm imports from the rich world. India also demanded that the additional safeguard duties that it should be allowed to impose on such imports should be above the Uruguay Round-bound levels (tariffs that were committed to at the Uruguay Round) as the present proposal of 15% additional duty would not be enough to curb such import surges and price declines.

However, the SSM proposal available to developing countries continued to be weaker than a similar mechanism available to rich countries to protect the interests of their mostly rich farmers from such cheap imports.

The other main unresolved issues included reduction of huge trade-distorting farm subsidies of the US, especially their cotton subsidies and Washington's insistence that developing countries should eliminate duties in certain infant and vulnerable industries. Earlier, in a bid to speed up the Doha Round talks, Lamy had last week disbanded the original group of 30-odd ministers and started holding discussions of just seven major countries including India.

But apart from adding to the bitterness that it caused to the members excluded from the core group, this attempt at expeditiously resolving the persisting differences between the developed and the developing world did not bear fruit with Lamy himself admitting that there was no convergence on key issues. Several of the developing, least developed and even developed countries excluded from the chosen group of seven nations expressed apprehensions about being left in the dark.

World Bank Slammed by MSP

2008-02-26T12:44:00.001+05:30

25 February 2008

PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Use

World Bank Slammed by MSP

Dr Bill Wilson, MSP for the West of Scotland, last week lodged a Parliamentary motion supporting the Independent People’s Tribunal on the World Bank Group in India. The tribunal, at which the views of leading figures from legal, literary, religious and scientific spheres were represented, condemned the World Bank Group for approving loans that “have caused extensive social and environmental harm”.

Speaking after lodging his motion, Dr Wilson said that he was aware that Nobel Prize-winning economist and former World Bank Chief Economist, Joseph Stiglitz, had also found fault with the institution and with the International Monetary Fund. Dr Wilson said that in the past too much pressure had been applied for developing countries to open up their economies too quickly: “This is not how today’s leading economic powers developed. It’s hypocritical and destructive to allow multinationals untrammelled access. Local businesses in developing countries often cannot compete with multinationals and jobs and local expertise are lost.

“In the case of India it is fair to say that the World Bank’s policy contributed to the deaths of many poor people. According to the Tribunal’s jury, World Bank-sponsored policies put tremendous pressure on the poorest people in India and the suicides of 137,000 poor farmers between 2001 and 2007 were at least partly attributable to this.”

Dr Wilson continued, “To make the point about the effects of World Bank pressure clearly I can do no better than quote from the jury’s statement:

‘India's farmers must now compete with imports from the heavily subsidized farms of the European Union and North America, at the same time when even the most meager state assistance for the poorest farmers is reduced. India was once self-sufficient in food production; its food security is now dependent on imports. It is clear to us that major World Bank Economic Restructuring, Structural Adjustment, and Sector Loans have directly promoted and helped to finance these economic policy changes which are a disaster for much of India's more than 700 million rural inhabitants, and most disastrous of all for poor farmers.’”

Dr Wilson concluded, “The tale of woe goes on and on. The rich should not get richer at the expense of the poorest in society. I welcome the Tribunal’s report, and sincerely hope that the World Bank will change its approach. If it does not do so, then I call upon the new Indian Government to put the interests of the poorest in Indian society first and to resist the blandishments of those who appear to act only for the benefit of multinational companies.”

Notes to Editors

1. Text of Bill Wilson’s motion

Date of Lodging: 22 February 2008
Short Title: Independent People’s Tribunal on the World Bank Group in India

S3M-01400 Bill Wilson (West of Scotland) (SNP): That the Parliament

notes the Independent People’s Tribunal on the World Bank Group in India, which involves retired justices of the supreme and high courts, leading writers, religious leaders, activists and academics; agrees with its condemnation of the World Bank for approving loans that “have caused extensive social and environmental harm”, unduly influenced the Indian policy-making process and promoted the establishment of common effluent treatment plants that failed to meet environmental norms, and further notes that Indian Government and World Bank officials failed to represent themselves at the tribunal despite two weeks’ notification.

2. Website of World Bank Group in India Tribunal

http://www.worldbanktribunal.org/

Bruce Rich - The Initial Findings of the Jury

2008-01-25T18:18:00.000+05:30

Bruce Rich's initial findings of the Independent People's Tribunal on the World Bank Group in India that took place in Delhi at the end of September 2007

2008-01-25T15:10:00.000+05:30

Sulak Sivaraska's initial findings of the Independent People's Tribunal on the World Bank Group in India that took place in Delhi at the end of September 2007.

Rawaswamy Iyer - The Initial Findings of the Jury

2008-01-25T12:18:00.000+05:30

Rawaswamy Iyer's initial findings of the Independent People's Tribunal on the World Bank Group in India that took place in Delhi at the end of September 2007.

Alejandro Nadal - The Initial Findings of the Jury

2008-01-24T14:10:00.000+05:30

Alejandro Nadal's initial findings of the Independent People's Tribunal on the World Bank Group in India that took place in Delhi at the end of September 2007.

Aruna Roy - The Initial Findings of the Jury

2008-01-23T15:22:00.002+05:30

Aruna Roy's initial findings of the Independent People's Tribunal on the World Bank Group in India that took place in Delhi at the end of September 2007. (In progress)

Arundhati Roy - The Initial Findings of the Jury

2008-01-23T15:09:00.001+05:30

Arundhati Roy's initial findings of the Independent People's Tribunal on the World Bank Group in India that took place in Delhi at the end of September 2007. (in progress)

Fraud In Five of World Bank Sponsored Health Projects In India

2008-01-16T10:49:00.000+05:30

Serious incidents of Fraud and Corruption found in five health projects funded by the Bank worth $570 million
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A detailed internal review, launched in 2006 by the bank's Department of Institutional Integrity, with support from the Indian government, found illegal activity in projects, including those focused on curbing malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, which dates as far back as 1997 (Wall Street Journal [1], 1/14). The projects under investigation were the Second National HIV/AIDS Control Project, the Malaria Control Project, the Tuberculosis Control Project, Food and Drug Capacity Building Project and the Orissa Health Systems Development Project, according to the bank.
According to the Journal, the review found that some of the HIV test kits for the $194 million HIV/AIDS Control Project "often performed poorly by producing erroneous or invalid results, potentially resulting in the further spread of disease." The report also found "numerous indicators of poor product quality in the bed nets supplied by the firms" in the $114 million Malaria Control Project. In the $125 million Tuberculosis Control Project, the review found "bidders sharing the same address and telephone numbers, unit prices showing a common formula and indicators of intent to split contract awards among several bidders."

The report also found inadequate facilities and evidence that the bank repeatedly ignored that the corruption was occurring, according to the Journal. In the AIDS Control Project, "the bank appeared to pay scant attention to the performance and quality of the goods supplied to the blood banks and testing centers, instead focusing on the number of such facilities being erected," the review said.

Read more : click here

Amit Bhaduri responds to the World Bank

2008-01-14T16:19:00.000+05:30

Choosing not to accept the Secretariat's invitation to attend the Tribunal, the World Bank instead posted a response to the Tribunal proceedings as well as a "Question and Answer" document on India's World Bank homepage.

Amit Bhaduri, a member of the jury, responds to what the World Bank published on its website on the final day of the Tribunal (24 September, 2007).

An economist and social activist, Professor Bhaduri is the author of many books, a small sample of which includes Development with Dignity: A Case for Full Employment, (2005), On the Border of Economic Theory and History (1999), The Intelligent Person’s Guide to Liberalization (1996) and The Economic Structure of Backward Agriculture (1983). He has been Professor Emeritus at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, has been appointed Professor of Political Economy at the University of Pavia and has been a visiting Professor at various academic institutions (Colegio de Mexico, Universities of Stanford, Vienna, Linz, Bologna, Bremen, and Trondheim).

Book Review: Seeds of Destruction

2008-01-08T07:27:00.000+05:30

The Independent People's Tribunal on the World Bank in India provided a great deal of testimony on the links between the World Bank and the large GE firms. That information will soon be posted on the Tribunal's web site (www.worldbanktribunal.com). The following review of William Engdahl's "Seeds of Destruction" by Stephen Lendman will be interesting to anyone following this industry. I also recommend the newsletter at Global Research for insights into many different aspects of the power of global capital.

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Today, we're all lab rats in an uncontrolled, unregulated mass human experiment the results of which are unknown. Once GM seeds are introduced to an area, the genie is out of the bottle for keeps.

Reviewing F. William Engdahl's "Seeds of Destruction" - by Stephen Lendman (Part I)

Bill Engdahl is a leading researcher, economist and analyst of the New World Order who's written on issues of energy, politics and economics for over 30 years. He contributes regularly to publications like Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Foresight magazine, Grant's Investor.com, European Banker and Business Banker International. He's also a frequent speaker at geopolitical, economic and energy related international conferences and is a distinguished Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization where he's a regular contributor.

Engdahl also wrote two important books - "A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order" in 2004. It's an essential history of geopolitics and the importance of oil. Engdahl explains that America's post-WW II dominance rests on two pillars and one commodity - unchallengeable military power and the dollar as the world's reserve currency combined with the quest to control global oil and other energy resources.

Engdahl's newest book is just out from Global Research: "Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation" and subject of this review. It's the diabolical story of how Washington and four Anglo-American agribusiness giants plan world domination by patenting life forms to gain worldwide control of our food supply and why that prospect is chilling. The book's compelling contents are reviewed below in-depth so readers will know the type future Henry Kissinger had in mind in 1970 when he said: "Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people."

Remember also, this cabal is one of many interconnected ones with fearsome power and ruthless intent to use it - Big Banks controlling the Federal Reserve and our money, Big Oil our world energy resources, Big Media our information, Big Pharma our health, Big Technology our state-of-the-art everything and watching us, Big Defense our wars, Big Pentagon waging them, and other corporate predators exploiting our lives for profit. Engdahl's book focuses brilliantly on one of them. To fully cover its vital contents, this review will be in three parts for more detail and to make it easily digestible.

URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7716

Global Research, January 2, 2008

Delhi Water Privatisation Plan

2008-01-01T15:41:00.000+05:30

When the Delhi government decided to privatize the water infrastructure in the Indian capital in 2000, a strong resistance movement emerged. These activists, which include Arvind Kejriwal, have played a critical role of maintaining access to water for Delhiites and have shown the power of collective action.

Due to the successful campaign which exposed the corruption of this potential World Bank project, the project was halted. This process of privatizing the management of municipal water has happened across many cities and its important for people to understand how this happens, why and under what conditions. Arvind Kejriwal explains the influence of the World Bank Group in the bidding procedure to predetermine which corporation (Price Waterhouse Coopers) would profit from the management of such an important public resource in the city of Delhi.

"Do we need the World Bank in India?", asks Kejriwal.

Activist and resident of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal is an activist for governmental transparency. He has received awards for his involvement with grassroots organisations in India, prominent one being the "Indian of the Year in Public Service" in 2006. He also founded the grassroots organisation Parivartan, devoted to the cause of ensuring a just and accountable governance in India.

World Bank want its repayments in Rupees

2007-12-28T18:06:00.000+05:30

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

2007-12-27T07:38:00.001+05:30

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

2007-12-21T15:06:00.000+05:30

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

2007-12-13T16:42:00.000+05:30

"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

2007-12-11T17:29:00.000+05:30

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?

2007-12-07T10:43:00.000+05:30

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

2007-12-03T17:46:00.000+05:30

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

2007-11-21T11:08:00.000+05:30

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

2007-11-15T18:12:00.000+05:30

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!

2007-11-12T18:00:00.000+05:30

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

2007-11-08T16:26:00.000+05:30

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

2007-11-06T16:48:00.000+05:30

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

2007-11-05T09:49:00.000+05:30

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

2007-11-04T16:17:00.000+05:30

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

2007-11-04T09:48:00.000+05:30

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

2007-11-03T15:17:00.000+05:30

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)

2007-11-02T14:15:00.000+05:30

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

2007-11-01T16:25:00.000+05:30

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

2007-10-30T14:57:00.000+05:30

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

2007-10-27T13:15:00.000+05:30

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

2007-10-25T12:05:00.000+05:30

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

2007-10-23T11:56:00.000+05:30

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

2007-10-22T16:08:00.000+05:30

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

2007-10-20T16:39:00.000+05:30

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

2007-10-18T17:40:00.000+05:30

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

2007-10-06T12:31:00.000+05:30

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’

2007-09-28T15:01:00.000+05:30

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

2007-09-22T18:09:00.000+05:30

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

2007-09-22T14:04:00.000+05:30

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

2007-09-20T14:17:00.000+05:30

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

More Corruption Scandals

2007-09-15T07:43:00.000+05:30

From our friends at the Bretton Woods Project:

[BWP Alert] Volcker panel releases report on Bank anti-graft
unit

The panel headed by former chairman of the US Federal Reserve Paul

Volcker, created to review the work of the World Bank's anti-corruption
unit, the Department of Institutional Integrity (or 'INT' - headed by
Wolfowitz acolyte Suzanne Rich Folsom), released its 40-page report
today:
http://www.independentpanelreview.com/report.shtml

The official report comes a few days after US NGO Government
Accountability Project (GAP) released a scathing parallel examination of
INT, finding some very dodgy practices indeed:

http://www.whistleblower.org/content/press_detail.cfm?press_id=1145

For ongoing discussion of the reports, their fallout and all the gossip
see the blog on IFIwatchnet:http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.italic.gif
insert italic tags
http://ifiwatchnet.org/?q=en/featured_blog/369

And from our friends at BIC:

WSJ: World Bank Wasted Money and Lives in Buying Wrong Medicine

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118955959601924586.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

The Cost of Too Many Consultants (ADB and World Bank)

2007-09-12T06:25:00.001+05:30

http://www.thenews.com.pk/editorial_detail.asp?id=59180

The News International

By Imtiaz Gul
Pakistan is currently witnessing a galore of consultants -- both from the private sector as well as from within the government. They are able to turn around even worst situations and hence a source of strength and new vision for respective departments, so runs the argument in favour of consultants being hired at hefty emoluments.

The Pakistan Image Project had attracted about seven highly-paid consultants. All but Mahreen Khan have said adieu to the project, stating various reasons for their departure. Departmental acrimony, lack of cooperation as well as of authority were some of the factors that forced these consultants out. Most of them were young and talented but probably had landed in the wrong place.

Several other people, however, turned to be luckier, and seem to have successfully taken the October 2005 earthquake tragedy by the horn and turned it into an opportunity.

As many as 15 consultants for instance have made their way into the "Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA)" against hefty salaries. Their prime objective is to regulate the reconstruction and rehabilitation activities in the earthquake-affected areas and to ensure financial transparency.

ERRA insiders say the employment of heavily-paid consultants, most of them from within the same bureaucracy that is accused of obstructionism and inaction, have also fuelled resentment and caused bad blood among scores of other government functionaries, particularly those on deputation; they are drawing just the government salary and some deputation allowance, whereas the consultants, draw amounts at least times of their salaries -- essentially for the same kind of jobs.

This gross disparity in the salary structure also results in bickering and indifference among the people involved in the same project. According to insiders, consultants' salaries, all being drawn from the World Bank and Asian Development Bank loans, range between 6000 to 10,000 dollars in addition to usual perks and privileges. They say this has prompted a number of bureaucrats and technocrats already in the government service to find out as to whether they could also benefit from the system in the same way.

It is surprising how ERRA, PERRA (Provincial Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority) and SERRA (State Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority) can open its gates to outsiders and insiders, mostly well-connected, people and accommodate them against lucrative salaries.

One would hardly contest the premise that jobs must carry incentives to make officials work. But equally disturbing is the disparity which comes across as a blatant discrimination of the majority of the staff, including even the lower, clerical and administrative staff, who prepare the mouth-watering salary and daily allowance bills and invoices of their officers, but themselves hardly get paid decent salaries or allowances.

The way the lower staff and regular employees are hounded by the seniors and the consultants without any extra benefits also causes fissures within the system. But it also underscores the dichotomy in a system on the one hand employs some people with unusually high salaries (for the local conditions) and on the other hand heavily relies on a big disicentivised lower-rung bureaucracy. That is why the Pakistan Image Project consultants failed to create a niche for themselves within the system. To what extent can ERRA, PERRA and SERRA consultants entrench themselves and extract cooperation from their colleagues, remains a matter of speculation as of now.

Although the NGO-led work is much better, yet the pace of work under the three organizations remains slow and objectionable, resulting in protests and occasional blockades of even the Karakorom Highway The common complaint is the dithering and delaying that the nitpicking by consultants and officials causes in the course of project implementation and execution of ground works. So, it remains questionable as to whether highly paid consultants do make a difference?

The writer is an Islamabad-based correspondent of a foreign news organisation. Email: vogul1960@-yahoo.com

Corporate Power and Influence in the World Bank

2007-09-12T06:05:00.000+05:30

http://www.stwr.net/content/view/2176/37/

Corporate influence11th September 07 - Shalmali Guttal, Focus on the
Global South

Every year, the World Bank (Bank) channels US$ 18-20 billion to developing
countries in the form of loans and grants with the ostensible aim of
reducing poverty and promoting economic growth. The Bank always acts in
tandem with its sibling agency, the International Monetary Fund (Fund),
even in countries that no longer borrow from the Fund. Not all Bank
financing and support goes to governments. A significant amount goes
directly to the private sector, especially large corporations, in the form
of loans, technical assistance and mitigation of investment risks.

Backing the Rich
In existence for over 60 years, the Bank has expanded from a single
institution-the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
(IBRD)--to five institutions, each dealing with a particular area of
operations. [1] These include financing and other supports for relief and
rehabilitation, physical and institutional infrastructure in sectors such
as energy, transportation, extractive industry and telecommunications,
restructuring of key sectors such as health, education, water and
agriculture to make them private sector and market friendly, private
sector development, and mitigating investment-associated risks for private
companies. Despite recent scandals, the Bank is a powerful institution. In
most of its client countries, it is virtually the only doorway to access
international trade, development finance and private investment capital.
It derives its power and policy agendas from its wealthiest shareholders
--governments that comprise the G-7 [2], who routinely use the Bank to
secure lucrative trade and investment deals in developing countries for
their respective transnational corporations (TNCs).

Corporate influence is manifested in and through the Bank in several ways.
Most obvious are the supports extended to private corporations through
three of its specialised institutions: the International Finance
Corporation (IFC), Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) and
International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).

The IFC is the private sector arm of the Bank and the world's largest
multilateral source of equity and loan financing for private enterprises
in developing countries. It claims to support economic development,
employment and poverty reduction by promoting open, competitive and
efficient markets and direct support for private companies in developing
countries. The IFC has developed a range of financial tools and services
to enable private companies to manage investment risks and broaden their
access to capital and developing country markets. The Bank and IFC have
also established the "Rapid Response knowledge initiative," which
specializes in policy advice on business environment reforms and
privatization policy in developing countries. The initiative maintains a
cyber-service called "Private sector blog-a market approach to development
thinking" to promote its pro-market, pro-corporate ideology. [3].

A closer look at IFC operations show that much of its support actually
goes to large, well-funded corporations and not to small-scale, local
entrepreneurs. Through the IFC, corporations get access to large,
government-sponsored infrastructure and service delivery projects and
investment opportunities that are relatively risk free. Local communities,
on the other hand, have little voice and no benefits in these investments
as social and environmental safeguards are increasingly overridden by
corporate demands for profits.

MIGA provides some of the most important services to private corporations
by mitigating the political risks of private investment in high risk, low
income and conflict-affected countries. MIGA's forte is political or
sovereign risk, which includes governmental actions that jeopardize
corporate revenues. MIGA risk guarantees protect corporate investors
against loss resulting from government expropriation of assets and breach
of contract, war and civil disturbance including insurrection, coups
d'état, revolution, sabotage, and terrorism. MIGA prides itself as a
leader in the political risk insurance industry and collaborates with
private and public insurers to "encourage private sector insurers into
transactions they would not have otherwise undertaken."[4] MIGA's
beneficiaries are generally TNCs in sectors such as water, energy, oil and
gas, telecommunications, automobiles, agribusiness and luxury hospitality.

MIGA also provides "dispute mediation" services and in this, it is
complemented by ICSID, which serves as a private, almost secret court to
settle disputes between states and private investors. ICSID has been in
the public spotlight recently because of a US$ 50 million lawsuit brought
against the Bolivian Government by Bechtel and Aguas Del Tunari for
cancellation of a water privatisation contract in the Bolivian town of
Cochabamba. A massive, coordinated international campaign against Bechtel
forced it to accept 30 cents as its settlement. But the case directed the
world's attention to the Bank's system of closed door trade courts, the
majority of which involve protecting the rights of corporate investors in
crucial public interest sectors such as water, electricity,
telecommunications, oil, natural gas and mining.

Corporate Support Disguised as “Development”
Less blatant, though more insidious and pervasive, are the pro-corporate
policy prescriptions that accompany Bank financing for so called
"development" projects and programmes through the IBRD and International
Development Association (IDA). Especially notorious are Bank-Fund designed
economic reform packages which seek to establish small, efficient and
corporate friendly governments to rule over corporate friendly capitalist
economies. Once called Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) and then
renamed "poverty reduction strategies," these reform packages are designed
to open up the markets and economies of borrowing countries to foreign
investors through trade and investment liberalisation, privatisation of
public utilities, state marketing boards and state enterprises, and
financial deregulation. Reforms also demand that cross subsidies for the
poor, and protections for workers and domestic producers and enterprises
be eliminated, and publicly financed social programmes--including those in
health, education, water and sanitation-be drastically cut back.

Although the ostensible goal of the Bank's "development finance" is to
alleviate poverty, increase employment and raise living standards by
stimulating rapid economic growth, Bank projects and programmes deliver
far greater benefits to private corporations, contractors and consulting
firms than to the poor. The Bank's push for trade liberalisation coupled
with the removal of government supports for domestic producers and
enterprises provides foreign corporations unrestricted access to
developing country markets in crucial sectors such as agriculture,
services and industry. By insisting that borrowing countries shrink labour
and environmental regulations and establish corporate friendly taxation
and property regimes, the Bank virtually assures private investors a free
ride at the cost of local communities, workers and environments.

The Bank's almost religious belief in commercialisation and privatisation
has served corporations extremely well. Regardless of the problem or
sector (water, electricity, agricultural marketing, health, education,
etc.) the Bank demands that the government step back and the market step
in. Privatisation includes a range of measures: from unbundling (or
breaking up) operations in a public enterprise and outsourcing (or
contracting out) the unbundled operations to eventual sale of the public
enterprise either whole or in part. Included in the package are contracts
for privately provided, high-end "technical assistance" and procurement of
ancillary goods and services. Although the Bank insists that procurement
and contracting are the responsibilities of the implementing agency [5]
(usually a government department), privatised assets, and construction,
consultancy and procurement contracts generally go to large corporations,
contractors and consulting firms that are well versed with Bank rules for
bidding and procurement.

The 'symbiosis' between the Bank and corporations is well demonstrated in
the biotechnology and agrochemical industries. The Bank's agriculture
policies have been practically written by corporations such as Monsanto,
Aventis, Novartis and Dow. Even as the Bank expanded its rhetoric about
environmental sustainability in the 1990s, its projects advocated
increasing farmers' access to agrochemicals and genetically modified
seeds. During this time, the Bank also entered into business partnerships
with nearly all leading pesticide and biotechnology companies through a
staff exchange programme that involved 189 corporations, governments,
universities and international agencies. A marketing analyst from Aventis
(now Bayer CropScience) spent nearly four years in the IBRD to develop
IBRD's position on agricultural biotechnology and strategies to leverage
financing through the IFC. Novartis' (now Syngenta) head of public affairs
spent a year working on outreach strategies for the Bank's rural
development unit. Bank officials placed in Novartis and Rhone Poulenc Agro
(now part of Bayer) in the late 1990s assisted them with biotechnology
regulatory issues and rural development partnerships. The Bank thus
adjusted its agricultural strategies to satisfy leading biotechnology and
agrochemical corporations which in turn gained access to public policy
making in developing countries via Bank sponsorship.[6].

Pro-corporate thinking is deeply embedded in the Bank. Many of the Bank's
presidents and senior staff come from the corporate sector and "market
solutions" feature prominently in the Bank's strategies for addressing
virtually any challenge whether deforestation, global warming or food and
water scarcity. The Bank's development vision is a capitalist one in which
the role of government is to create an "enabling environment" for the
private (corporate) sector to flourish and for the market to sort out
crucial issues of access and distribution. In large hydro-power projects
for example, the Bank routinely assists host governments and private
contractors in project preparation and mobilising project finance: it
hires private consulting firms to work alongside government departments to
design the project and implementing arrangements, mobilises project
financing (through the IFC) and underwrites the loans (through MIGA or
other partnering risk guarantors). The costs of environmental and social
mitigation are left to government and society, and the terms of project
financing and guarantees generally favour private companies over the
larger public interest.

The Bank is proud of its support for corporations and private investors,
as expressed on the MIGA website:
"Our presence in a potential investment can literally transform a "no-go"
into a "go." We act as a potent deterrent against government actions that
may adversely affect investments. And even if disputes do arise, our
leverage with host governments frequently enables us to resolve
differences to the mutual satisfaction of all parties."[7].

For several decades now, the Bank has used development and poverty
reduction as smokescreens to further corporate interests. It has used its
position as preferred creditor and aid coordinator in developing countries
to create opportunities for private corporations, contractors and
consultants to profit from structural needs and crises in developing
countries. Clearly, dismantling corporate power over our public goods,
services and commons will also require dismantling the World Bank.

Shalmali Guttal is a senior associate with Focus on the Global South.

India's Leading Economists and Activists to Discuss Post - World Bank Development Alternatives

2007-09-10T07:32:00.000+05:30

At the World Bank Tribunal coming up this 21-24 September at Jawaharlal Nehru University, evening sessions organized by the JNU Teachers Association in collaboration with a number of Delhi Based groups will be held to ask, "What are the alternative models for India's Development"?

While the Tribunal itself will provide a vast breadth and depth of testimony as to the painful consequences of privatization and other World Bank policies, the overall event is planned to be an open space for envisioning new or missed paths of what Amit Bhaduri calls "development with dignity".

The 4 day event will bring together activists and academics from all around the country to work together on new strategies and concrete next steps to redirect the current trajectory in India where capital is becoming more and more concentrated in the hands of the few.

Participate!

www.worldbanktribunal.org

India was World Bank's largest borrower in 2007

2007-09-07T17:45:00.000+05:30

India was by far the largest borrower from two World Bank institutions, accounting for $3.75 billion, or 15 percent of their total lending as the bank group globally committed $34.3 billion in fiscal year 2007.

Q: Where did the money borrowed from the World Bank by Indian Goverment go?
http://www.indiaenews.com/america/20070906/68862.htm
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The World Bank's programme in India focuses on providing basic services such as access to clean water and education, improving infrastructure for rural areas, and employment. The increase also reflects $700 million in lending to the health sector to India which was carried over from the previous year,according to a World Bank release.

The World Bank Group extended loans, credits, grants, equity investments, and guarantees totalling nearly $6.9 billion to South Asia in fiscal year 2007, an increase of $2.3 billion over the previous year.

The increase demonstrated the institution's continuing role in fighting poverty as South Asian countries look for ways to tackle their social challenges even while most of their economies grew aggressively, it said.

Contributing to this increase was: $1.6 billion from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), $4.03 billion from the International Development Association (IDA), $1.18 billion from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and $76 million from the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Investment Agency (MIGA).

'South Asia is home to the largest number of people in the world living below one dollar a day, so the agenda for poverty alleviation in the region remains very large,' said Praful Patel, World Bank Vice President for South Asia.

'The lending numbers from the IDA and IBRD in Fiscal Year 2007 are in line with the scaling up strategy we developed for the region three years ago.'

'There's a huge demand for IDA resources in South Asia and there's a huge prospect for making a real impact on the ground to reduce poverty,' said Patel. 'These types of programmes would not be possible without IDA funding. IDA leverages government programmes, enabling them to innovate and scale up.'

Many of the Bank's projects in the last fiscal year supported existing programmes that are delivering results. Looking ahead, the Bank will focus on cross-cutting reforms such as governance and fiscal management, and continue addressing deficiencies in the region's investment climate, such as weak infrastructure, red tape, and corruption.

It will also deepen its engagement in states where poverty is increasingly concentrated, such as Orissa and Bihar in India and Sindh in Pakistan.

IFC's investment commitments in the South Asia region reached $1.07 billion for 30 projects in FY07, and it mobilised an additional $102 million through syndications.

Three quarters of the $2.6 billion of the disbursed and outstanding regional portfolio is in India, with Bangladesh at $147 million, the second largest.

Private sector projects worth $3 billion were supported as a result of IFC's assistance to the Indian corporate sector. IFC doubled its committed portfolio in India in the infrastructure sector, to $600 million. Investments ranged from natural gas to wind power and from port services to a fund for developing public-private projects in infrastructure sector.

'The South Asia Region has been acknowledged as a leader in impact Evaluations - to better understand what works and what doesn't work, so governments and the Bank can decide what should be scaled up and what should be scaled down,' said Shanta Devarajan, World Bank Chief Economist for South Asia.

This year also saw earlier Bank analytical work having policy impact. Estimates of teacher absenteeism in India, for example, have contributed to a shift in the focus of India's major primary education programme towards improved education quality, the Bank said.

In response to the Bank's Doing Business report, the Indian government set up a Committee of Secretaries in November 2006. This Committee has directed that action is taken to reduce the time and cost of doing business in the country.

World Bank Hides Incriminating Corruption Report

2007-09-07T17:23:00.000+05:30

A 16 page report clearly links the World Bank to a corruption scandal.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
World Bank Hides Incriminating Corruption Report

Months after its president was forced out for getting his girlfriend promotions and hefty pay raises, officials at the scandal-plagued World Bank are working to kill a scathing report on the rampant fraud in a major bank-supported health care project in India.

After a thorough investigation, the World Bank’s Department of Institutional Integrity found that an Indian pharmaceutical program called Reproductive and Child Health Project has for years been rife with corruption that has led to the loss of billions of dollars.

A 16-page report reveals that the systematic fraud and corruption includes bribery of government officials and procurement support agencies, falsification of performance certificates and coercion of companies.

This includes costly but sub-standard drugs that exceeded World Bank budgets as well as other equipment that didn’t meet international standards.

Investigators say that multiple witnesses admitted bribing government officials and ministers in order to secure the bank-funded contracts and that there is plenty of evidence to merit sanctions against specific individuals and companies. This risks the future of similar programs intended to help the poor.

In fact, the 185-nation World Bank strives to reduce poverty worldwide by assisting developing countries but instead it has been infested with corrupt officials who have failed miserably to complete the institution’s mission.

When President George W. Bush appointed Paul Wolfowitz as World Bank president in 2006, both men vowed to clean house and fervently pursue anti-corruption policies. Wolfowitz had been a high-ranking official in three different Republican administrations and was the nation’s Deputy Defense Secretary before taking the World Bank post.

But after a rather short tenure Wolfowitz resigned because he was exposed for abusing his authority to get his girlfriend promotions and huge pay increases at the institution. Wolfowitz admitted that he personally directed the World Bank’s head of human resources to offer his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, a pay increase that drew attention because it was more than double allowed under staff rules.

Read the 16 page report :
http://www.corruptionchronicles.com/2007/09/world_bank_hides_incriminating.html

LATEST WORLD BANK BIOSAFETY PROPOSAL HEAVILY CRITICISED.

2007-09-06T19:27:00.000+05:30

LATEST WORLD BANK BIOSAFETY PROPOSAL FOR WEST AFRICA HEAVILY CRITICISED.

http://www.grain.org/m/?id=142

The World Bank has revised and resubmitted its new version of the West African biosafety project to the United Nation's Global Environment Facility after deep concerns were raised by civil society groups and governments with the initial proposal.

In response, COPAGEN, the Coalition for the Protection of African Genetic Heritage which is based across West Africa in Burkina Faso, Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Conakry, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo, has reacted angrily to this proposal. The proposal appears to have little support from the grassroots and has blatantly made it difficult for most to participate; participation has been selective and the main language has been English, despite nearly all countries involved having French as their official language. The new proposal is also only available as an enormous file, making it difficult for many people in West Africa to access.

The German government council member of GEF (Global Environment Facility) has also heavily criticised this latest proposal.

For more information on this and links to documents visit http://www.grain.org/m/?id=142

World Bank Wonders: Who Needs the World Bank Anyway?

2007-09-06T07:45:00.000+05:30

Amidst a global movement to rid debtor countries from the outside influence of the World bank and its cronies in Washington, the Bank itself wonders how to improve its lending portfolio. With many new competitors in the investor pool, the new World Bank President is strategizing on the future of the Bank and looking into new lending instruments and operational tactics.

Formerly Vice Chairman, International, of Goldman Sachs Group, and a Managing Director and Chairman of Goldman Sach’s Board of International Advisors, this comes as no surprise.

See the International Herald Tribune 28 August:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/28/business/zoellick.php

Given the power the Bank has over debtor countries institutional and policy frameworks, new "products" designed on Wall Street and sold by the Washington controlled Bank is exactly what Southern borrowers don't need.

Hundreds from India will challenge the entire notion of World Bank and Private Capital interference in the nation's policy framework at the World Bank Tribunal this September at JNU, New Delhi.

Find out how to participate at www.worldbanktribunal.org

Over a Hundred Will Speak Out at the World Bank Tribunal in India: Programme Announced

2007-09-05T06:36:00.000+05:30

Over a hundred people from across the country will present testimony at the Independent People's Tribunal on the World Bank in India this month. From 21-24 September intellectuals, grassroots activists, and those simply willing to come forward to speak about the impact of World Bank projects and policies on their communities will convene at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Those listening from the Jury are:

* Professor Amit Bhaduri
* Meher Engineer
* Ramaswamy Iyer
* Prabash Joshi
* Abid Hassan Minto
* Alejandro Nadal
* Aruna Roy
* Arundhati Roy
* Justice P.B. Sawant
* S.P. Shukla
* Sulak Sivaraksa
* Justice Suresh
* Eric Toussaint
* Justice Usha

Download the full schedule at:

www.worldbanktribunal.org/WBT_Program Schedule_v1.pdf

Registration is Open!

www.worldbanktribunal.org/WBT_Registration.doc

Full Tribunal details are available at:
www.worldbanktribunal.org

To sign up for the mailing list visit:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/worldbanktribunal

For all other inquiries please contact secretariat@worldbanktribunal.org

World Bank framing long-term strategy

2007-09-03T17:24:00.000+05:30

Q: Is there any way to access the following World Bank draft strategy ? - Vinay Baindur

Read the following article published in Hindu :

Date:02/09/2007

URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/09/02/stories/2007090260530800.htm

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World Bank framing long-term strategy
Ashok Dasgupta
NEW DELHI: With globalisation changing the contours of economic decision-making across the world, the World Bank is reorienting its strategy to see how best it can serve the needs of various countries in the years to come.
Armed with a draft framework of the long-term strategy, the Bank's Global Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President Francois Bourguignon is on a whirlwind global tour to get a feedback on the ongoing exercise to see how best the Bank can stay relevant to the needs of various developing countries in the next 10-20 years.
In an exclusive interview with The Hindu on Saturday, Mr. Bourguignon, who is here on a two-day visit for deliberations with think-tanks and apex chambers on the issue, said: "I have been coming to India for quite some time, b ut this specific visit is within the framework of the world tour I am making to get a feedback on an exercise, which we are conducting in the Bank to try and figure out what could be the elements on which we could rely on to design a long-term strategy for the World Bank in the next 10-20 years."
As the new President is concerned with the long-term directions of the World Bank, "we thought it was important to lay down an analytical groundwork for this kind of strategic decisions. So we have written a kind of draft and I am travelling around the world to get a feedback from various countries," he said.
While the exercise has been some kind of a learning experience for the Bank, at the same time, "it is a kind of review of what has been done in the past and the lessons that we can draw from that experience and it is also drawing on that experience to figure out what we should do in the future. What do we think would be the needs in the future for World Bank help or intervention and, at the same time, what is the way in which the Bank should help intervene in countries in the future," he said.
For some time already, the Bank has modified the way in which it does business and relates with its partner countries. Elaborating on the change, Mr Bourguignon said: "I would say that the old days of structural adjustment policies are now gone. From this, we learnt that certainly, we cannot be too rigid on the kind of policies we recommend, that the policies must depend on individual circumstances of a country and, may be, in the circumstances which are time dependent," and we learnt that it was essential for the policies to be owned or to be decided by our partner countries rather than imposed by the World Bank."

October 2007: Action Against World Bank & IMF

2007-09-01T13:43:00.000+05:30

Disrupt the IMF and the World Bank meetings: Washington DC, October 19-21, 2007

For more information:www.octoberrebellion.org

The misery, marginalization, and impoverishment forced on millions bythe International Monetary Fund and World Bank is unacceptable andrenders them illegitimate.The IMF and World Bank are controlled by rich imperialist countries incorrupt complicity with national elites all over the world. They claimto lead the fight against poverty, but their role as global loansharks; their cruel imposition of privatization, cuts to socialservices, and free trade policies; their funding for environmentallydisastrous projects; their secrecy and undemocratic decision makingprocesses, make them an enemy of the people worldwide.Today, these two institutions are on the defensive. Venezuela,Bolivia, and Ecuador are in open revolt against the IMF and WorldBank. South African shantytown dwellers are fighting waterprivatization; Korean workers are striking against "free trade"agreements; and thousands of people successfully blockaded the G8meeting in Germany earlier this year.In the U.S., in the heart of empire, millions are struggling againstthe oppressive system of capitalism for dignity, autonomy andsolidarity. Tens of thousands gathered for the first ever UnitedStates Social Forum; millions of immigrants have marched for theirrights; and in Washington DC, in the belly of the beast, residents areorganizing against the policies of gentrification and displacement.This year social movements from all over the world gathered at theWorld Social Forum in Nairobi, Kenya to devise the next stage in theassault against the World Bank and IMF. In solidarity with our alliesin the Global South, and recognizing the toll corporate capitalismtakes on our own lives, Washington DC-based activists and our alliesare calling for actions at the IMF/World Bank headquarters inWashington DC, during the upcoming annual meetings, October 19-21.Our demands are simple:§ Cancel all impoverished country debt to the World Bank and IMF,using the institutions' own resources.§ End neoliberal structural adjustment policies, which prioritizeprofit for the few over the lives of the many.§ End the social and environmental devastation caused by oil, gas,mining and big dam projects.It's time to strike another blow against Global Capitalism.Tear Down the World Bank and IMF. Raise up the resistance.Join us in Washington DC on October 19-21, 2007.The World Bank and IMF are wreaking havoc on our communities.*Immigration"Free trade" agreements and IMF and World Bank policies have resultedin extreme poverty and marginalization, forcing millions from Mexico,Haiti, and elsewhere in Central America, Asia, and Africa, to fleetheir countries, risking their lives at sea, only to be treated ascriminals, detained and deported once in the U.S.*Effects at HomeThe same ideology that fuels the IMF and World Bank destroyscommunities here in the United States. The privatization of water andelectricity services, the closures of public housing, thetransformation of homeless shelters into luxury condos, the transitionof public schools to Charter schools, and shutdowns of publichospitals show the increased strangle-hold corporate capitalism hasover our lives.*Global WarmingThe World Bank exacerbates global warming through existing polices,such as funding fossil fuel extraction and deforestation, whilepromoting false solutions such as carbon trading.*Post-Conflict Re-DestructionWars waged by the U.S. and its allies open countries to economictakeover. The IMF eliminated Iraq's fuel subsidies, driving up pricesof food and other necessities. The World Bank privatized Afghanistan'shealthcare, and is helping mining companies rob Congo's resources. TheU.S-backed UN MINUSTAH forces are brutally occupying Haiti, repressingpeople's resistance against privatization of state-owned flour mills,electricity utilities, telecommunication, public schools, and otheressentials. U.S. military intervention and free trade policies havethe same goals – ensuring corporations' access to resources, cheaplabor, and markets.
Endorsers:50 Years Is Enough www.50years.org
DC Alliance for Immigrant Justice (pending)
Fondasyon Mapou www.fondasyonmapou.org
202-370-6407Friends of the Congo www.friendsofthecongo.org
Front Farabundo Marti for the National Liberation of El Salvador(Washington DC committee) www.fmln.org.sv
Haitian Priorities Project www.hpp4haiti.comMobilization for Global Justice www.globalizethis.org
mgj@riseup.net 202-898-5953

Mayors call for autonomy for better implementation

2007-09-01T13:12:00.000+05:30

JNNURM had a role for WSP-SA in doing the Lucknow CDP according to the Mayors after nearly two years there are now progress on projects. - Vinay Baindur
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Mayors call for autonomy for better implementation

Express News Service

Lucknow, August 24: Demanding more autonomy for the civic bodies and implementation of the 74th Amendment of the Constitution in the state, Mayors from across the state met on Friday.
They discussed the problems that were being faced by the municipal corporations and later forwarded a memorandum to Chief Minister Mayawati in this regard through the Principal Secretary of the Urban Development, Govindan Nayar.
The Mayors threatened to resign from their offices if their demands were not fulfilled.
Lucknow Mayor Dinesh Sharma said, though the Constitution has provisions for the autonomy of the civic bodies, the state government has shown little interest in this direction.
Sharma said: "The Panchayati Raj system and the de-centralisation of powers are the basic guidelines of our Constitution. But instead of giving more powers to the municipal corporations, Nagarpalikas or Panchayats, they are made handicapped. We want the 74th Amendment of Constitution implemented, that says about greater role of municipalities in local development, Mayor should have more powers on the 18 points defined by the amendment that includes urban projects, land use, industrial development, environment, transport, traffic, fire services and others."
He added: "Ambitious schemes like JNNURM have been launched in the state, still the progress is slow due to the lack of coordination with the municipal corporation. Any project under the JNNURM could not kick off even after two years of its launch. The government asked to remove beckons and security from the Mayors."
"The post of deputy mayor was scrapped. Why are similar steps not being against the MLAs or bureaucrats? We want the government to involve us in the policy-making pertaining to the cities. The suggestions of Mayors and corporators must be incorporated in the city projects," he said.
Supriya Aron, Mayor of Bareily, said, the Mayors had no real powers. "Public representatives are blamed for ineffectiveness of the municipal bodies. People have a lot of expectations from us, but we can't do everything. We can only recommend or suggest the Municipal Commissioner about the issues. Many times, we are unaware of the plans that are being implemented in the city," she said.

NEWS: The World Bank forwards a 70 point agenda to Bangladesh

2007-08-31T21:27:00.000+05:30

NEWS: The World Bank forwards a 70 point agenda to Bangladesh

The World Bank has forwarded 70-point agenda to the government on financial, social, judiciary, election, corruption and governance for implementation in the current 2007-2008 fiscal year.

The future lending from World Bank and International Monetary Fund is linked with the implementation of the key issues of the agenda, officials from the Ministry of Finance said. They also said that many of the points in the agenda had already been incorporated in the budget for 2007-08 fiscal years, while the government is working on a number of other issues.

Some of the issues included in the agenda are related to revenue and monetary matters, seeking measures to maintain macroeconomic stability, and further tightening of monetary policy to combat inflation. The global lender wants commitments to eliminate average nominal protection rates, separate tax policy and planning from tax administration, and combine the two large taxpayers units (tax and value added tax).

Bringing the Agrani Bank to the point of sale, revamping the boards of Agrani, Janata and Sonali banks, amending guidelines for provident
fund and insurance fund to energise treasury bond market and reforming the insurance law are among the World Bank's agenda for financial sector. Its agenda for power and energy sectors include financial restructuring plan for power companies and enabling private investment in power generation and operationalising Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission.

Luckily the World Bank is not planning to have a consultation to assess progress on the use of a non-intrusive and streamlined new conditionality in Bangladesh – they would have a hard time to come up with the right evidence to support the expected trends!

The full text of the news report, written by Nazmul Ahsan and Obaidul Ghani, can be found in the daily NewAge, July 21, 2007. Dhaka, Bangladesh: www.newagebd.com

EVENTS: Public hearing on the World Bank in The Hague

2007-08-31T21:25:00.000+05:30

EVENTS: Public hearing on the World Bank in The Hague

The World Bank Campaign Europe is preparing a public hearing on the World Bank in co-operation with the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal. It will take place on the 15th of October in The Hague, the Netherlands, one week before the Annual Meetings of the World Bank and the IMF.

The World Bank is being criticised more strongly than ever by donor and borrower governments as well as civil society organisations and local communities for increasing rather than reducing poverty by imposing harmful economic policy conditions; for environmental devastation; for contributing to conflict; and for failing to respect local peoples’ rights.

2007 is the year where donor governments negotiate the 15th replenishment of funds to the concessional arm of the World Bank, the International Development Association (IDA). The conclusions of the Hearing will put donor governments under pressure to set more precise objectives for how taxpayers’ aid money should be spent, and to audit performance on a regular basis. The documentation of the Hearing will also provide a solid source to feed an intensive debate about the future of the organisation, the current development model and potential alternatives.

Witnesses from all Southern continents will give testimony of the impacts of World Bank policies and practices, especially in the areas of conditionality and fossil fuel project funding. Well-known and respected experts will listen to testimonies from all parts of the world about the impact of World Bank financing and ask questions. In the evening, the expert panel will convene to draft a declaration to be presented in a press conference the next morning.

There will be a live video streamlining for the entire event on www.worldbankcampaigneurope.org. Already now you can cast a vote to tell your development minister to act now and to seriously question and change World Bank policies. Change cannot wait!

For more information please get in touch with Juliane Westphal jwestphal@eurodad.org.

"World Economic Growth Will Slow Down In 2007" - Francois Bourguignon

2007-08-31T15:19:00.000+05:30

The following report by reuters clearly states a crisis in 2007

http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSL306111520070830?pageNumber=2
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DAKAR (Reuters) - The World Bank's chief economist on Thursday forecast that world economic growth would slow in 2007 but said the possibility of a crisis would diminish if the global economy could weather the next few weeks.
Francois Bourguignon, senior vice president at the multilateral lender, said the deceleration in world economic growth this year should not have a deep impact on developing nations, where the bank focuses its development lending.
"We expect some slowdown in world economic growth this year," he said, adding that this would likely trim between 0.3 and 0.4 percentage points from growth in developing nations.
"Last year, developing economies grew by 6.5 percent, so this year we are looking at just over 6 percent," he told Reuters during a visit to West Africa to discuss the World Bank's ongoing strategic policy review.
"Growth is still likely to be strong next year," he said.
Asked about the recent turmoil in financial markets, stirred by fallout from high-risk U.S. subprime mortgage lending, Bourguignon played down the likelihood of a severe impact on the world economy.
"If there must be a crisis, it will be in 2007. If we can get through the next couple of weeks, then that risk will fall," he said. "If there is a crisis, it is more likely to be a temporary crisis."
Bourguignon said the scandal surrounding the departure of Paul Wolfowitz from the World Bank's presidency had done no permanent damage to the institution. He said new chief Robert Zoellick was conducting business as usual.
Wolfowitz left under a cloud in June in a scandal involving a promotion for his companion, Shaha Riza, who also worked at the bank The vice president said that Africa, which he characterized as the lender's priority region, may be under-represented in terms of its shares in the bank.
"Africa has a weight which is inferior to its demographic weight, and probably even its economic weight," he said.

Former World Bank Vice President predicts Global Economic Crash in 24 months !

2007-08-31T11:55:00.001+05:30

The controversial economist Joseph Stiglitz who exposed corruption in IMF back in 2001 has now come up with a deadly news of the Global Economic Crash .

Read the article below:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/october2006/301006globalcrash.htm

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Nobel Prize winner Stiglitz highlights agenda of predatory globalism now arriving in America under auspices of NAFTA Superhighway, North American Union
Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones/Prison Planet.com October 30 2006
Former World Bank Vice President, Chief Economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz has predicted a global economic crash within 24 months - unless the current downturn is successfully managed. Asked if the situation was being properly handled Stiglitz emphatically responded "no," and also drew ominous parallels to the development of the NAFTA Superhighway and the North American Union.
Stiglitz caused controversy in October 2001 when he exposed rampant corruption within the IMF and blew the whistle on their nefarious methods of inducing countries to fall under their debt before stripping them of sovereignty and hollowing out their economies.
Speaking on the nationally syndicated Alex Jones radio show, Stiglitz defined the process of globalization as a system that was "rigged against the poor countries, rigged for the advanced industrial countries - the result of that is there were an awful lot of losers."
The Columbia University Professor described how rampant privatization has crippled Mexico, in particular citing the sell-off of major infrastructure such as roads.
"They sold the roads to the private enterprise and the hope was that they would be more efficient but of course what happens is that they didn't maintain the roads, they couldn't generate enough revenue and they eventually had to default and give the roads back to the government."
Stiglitz agreed that the process of hijacking and looting key infrastructure on the part of the IMF and World Bank, as an offshoot of predatory globalization, had now moved from the third world to Europe, the United States and Canada.
These sentiments are especially disturbing when we consider the current fast-moving quasi-secret agenda to sell-off major American highways to foreign corporations who plan to turn them into toll roads for tracking and taxation purposes - collectively known as the NAFTA Superhighway. The program forms the framework for the advancement of the North American Union - a collective governmental, border and trading bloc that President Bush has signed the U.S. over to under the Security and Prosperity Partnership of March 2005.
As we previously reported, US citizens will be forced to adopt a de-facto national identification card and have their freedom of mobility defined by behavioral fealty to the government under proposals set to derive from NAFTA superhighway toll road systems and the implementation of the American Union.
"This is a movement that's gone on all over the world," said Stiglitz, "the movement of trying to turn over basic facilities - water, roads, to the private sector."

Is the World Bank Group responsible for starvation deaths in Africa?

2007-08-31T11:32:00.000+05:30

Are the WTO, World Bank, and IMF to blame for huge amounts of the world's misery? Is transnational capital flow or multinational corporations an inherently bad idea?

Read the following article !
What Is The Right Way To Complain About Globalization?

http://equivocality.net/what-is-the-right-way-to-complain-about-globalization/

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By far the greatest influence of the external environment on the development of the East African countries derives from their participation in the world economy. And the overall effect of this influence is negative. It arises from the tendency within the global economy towards the globalization of capital and its sources of profits, the transnationalization of the capitalist productive forces and production ethos, and the compradorization of ruling circles. This tendency has led to the obliteration of national economic boundaries by the activities of the multinational corporations, the globalization of production and consumption habits, the subjection of national economic politics to the dictates of foreign firms and such international capitalist institutions as the world bank and the IMF.
This passage is from a paper entitled “The External Environment of Development in East Africa”, from the book The Crisis of Development Strategies in East Africa. It reads like a totally modern critique of global capitalism and its effects on the developing world. You might hear something very like this at a WTO protest anywhere in the world. However, it was written in 1986.
The rest of the article is pretty representative of standard Marxist ideology. It uses phrase like “bourgeoisie”, “social liberation struggles”, and “crisis of the capitalist system.” I find all of this rather silly — not because capitalism does not deserve to be criticized, but because standard Marxist communist thought is economically naive, overly ideological, and, let’s face it, somewhat rabid.
This suggests to me that the standard modern sound-bite critique of globalization, which came to public visibility during the late 1990s in such large-scale movements as the Seattle protest during the WTO summit of 1999, actually originated much earlier, at least a decade, in communist ideology and protest culture.
Interesting.
Why am I bringing this up?
Clearly, something is wrong with the world economic system. Too many people are very poor, even in rich countries. The world produces enough food for all, but Sub-Saharan Africa is still starving. Americans are wearing $150 pairs of Nikes which Filipino children are manufacturing twelve hours per day for slave wages. It is easy, and important, to get angry.
But what to yell?
The protest slogans have to come from somewhere. The intellectual framework for the criticism has to come from somewhere. Most importantly, the world-view has to come from somewhere because all those students, in poor and rich countries alike, cannot actually afford to visit the sweatshops personally. Most of them also don’t care to study standard economics, because a) it’s difficult and technical and b) it’s the subject of the enemy, the barbarous tools of the capitalist pigs. I’ve actually had the director of a community currency system tell me to my face that he didn’t want to study any economics because “it’s just the old ways of thought, the system that’s keeping people down.”
What seems to have happened is the tireless first-world communist minority — who have been printing leaflets for God knows how many decades in the face of crushing indifference — found themselves in the early 1990s in possession of the only ready-made, cogent critique of globalization around. The over-branded population of the rich-countries started to wake up around that time, started to take offense at the growing invasion of corporate power into cognitive and moral spaces, but in the absence of a bigger picture all that they could muster was unease. It took a simple, quotable ideology to turn discontent into protest
Now, this is not a critique of Marxist ideology. Frankly, I think it pretty much critiques itself these days, and I encourage anyone who’s interested to read The Communist Manifesto. Marx was certainly on to something when he noted that unequal distribution of wealth was a problem, as it still is. He simply didn’t solve the problem in any meaningful sense. Instead, we got an ideology; we got the attractive, seductive, and awkward model of dialectical materialism and class war. To top it all off, his work was all grounded in very naive economics, because he wrote 150 years ago, before the development of the foundations of what is now elementary micro-economics. As a result he makes some ridiculous predictions, such as the “crisis of capitalism” due to excess surplus, which has never come to pass.
So I’m not at all bothered with communism or communists or Marxists per se, and in most cases I applaud their goals. However, I can’t stand ideology, because it gets in the way of learning. And, unfortunately, ideology seems to be mostly what those critiquing globalization at the street level mostly have to offer at the moment.
This is very, very sad, because the problems of globalization are very real, and deserve an intelligent critique.
For the record, I believe that the basic theory of comparative advantage in standard economics is correct: everyone is better off when each country produces what it can produce most cheaply. I think that the insane increases in first-world material standard of living in the last 200 years (consider, for example, how many hours you have to work to obtain a blanket now at Walmart versus 100 years ago when you had to raise the sheep first) are due mostly to specialization and technological advances, rather than the ever-more efficient exploitation of the world’s poor. In other words, I think free trade is, in principle, a good thing. Yet I am deeply uneasy about branding, and the commodification of the commons, such as the replacement of public spaces with malls. I think it is obvious that certain Powerful Interests are ignoring the trade externalities that are destroying our environment. And, as my friend Leslie Lausch asks, “why is it illegal to to violate human rights during the manufacture of a shoe in the United States, but legal to buy that same shoe if these rights are violated in another country?”
Is capitalism inherently flawed, violent and unfair? Are the WTO, World Bank, and IMF to blame for huge amounts of the world’s misery? Is transnational capital flow or multinational corporations an inherently bad idea? I don’t know. Read that again. I don’t know. This is what I am saying that the author of the above quoted paragraph is not. The world is big and very, very complex. I’m seeing as much as I can personally; for the rest I must rely on second-hand accounts. Here are some books on the subject which I have read or am meaning to read, in an effort to understand these complexities
Have read:
Culture and Prosperity: The Truth About Markets - Why Some Nations Are Rich but Most Remain Poor by John Kay, 2004. The best one-volume introduction to both the theory and practice of global economics that I have ever found, by a former head of the Bank of England.
First year textbook on economics. I read Lipsey, but I imagine just about anything will do. If you have first-year calculus, you can and should understand this material, because this is the best of human knowledge on how resources can/should be/are distributed in human societies; analogy is no substitute for the real deal, in the end.
No Logo by Naomi Klein, 1996. The classic, popular critique of branding and, indirectly, globalization. She makes some technical mistakes as she is not an economist (such as comparing GDP, which is essentialy the “profit” of a country, to the gross income of a corporation when looking at the relative sizes of each) so you need to be suspicious of her statistics, but she really nails down all the important but “soft” reasons why globalization is worrysome.
Open World: The Truth about Globalization, by Philippe Legrain, 2004. A slightly hysterical response to No Logo etc. by a mainstream economist, however his extensive factual knowledge is very valuable, and in the end his argument is that we can design globalization to serve whatever ends we wish.
Alternatives To Economic Globalization by John Cavanagh, Jerry Mander, Sarah Anderson, and Debi Barker, 2002. A collection of essays on the title topic. Quality varies; to me there were obvious problems with many of the schemes proposed.
The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists’ Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics, William Easterly, 2002. Basically, one chapter on each major economic development strategy that has been tried over the past 50 years (loans, grants, debt relief, population control, education, infrastructure building, etc.) None of them has really worked, and this book attempts to discern why. Valuable.
Banker to the Poor: Micro-lending and the Battle Agaist World Poverty, by Muhammad Yunus, 2002. This is the man who won the Nobel prize for his work in micro-credit. It’s certainly a worldview — he feels that micro-credit might be able to solve pretty much everything — but the work is very solid, he’s actually helped real poor people in large numbers, and his ideas deserve serious attention.
Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown by Paul Thoreaux, 2004. I don’t need to write a book about my African experience because Thoreaux has done it better than I ever could. We in west speak of “Africa” like we know what we’re saying, but we don’t. If you can’t actually visit, then you need to read this before you start talking about how to help the poor starving Africans. Hint: Africa’s problems are not entirely the West’s fault.
Want to read:
Globalization and Its Discontents, Joseph Stiglitz, 2003. The classic critique by the Nobel-prize winner and former head of the World Bank.
Making Globalization Work, also by Stiglitz, 2007. Interesting title, isn’t it?
The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time by Jeffery Sachs, 2006. Ambitious as hell, but the man has been doing development economics for long time, plus he actually travels to meet the people he’s allegedly trying to help, so I have to take him seriously.
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins, 2005. A former insider for the IMF talks about all the horrible things he’s done. Radicals and conspiracy theorists alike spoke of these sorts of economic evil deeds for decades. At last, we can confirm or deny the rumors.

Mainstreaming Public-Private Partnerships in Urban Infrastructure

2007-08-30T11:40:00.000+05:30

So back to back with the JNNURM mission secretariat and their TA.

We have a new TA for $2mn and all this is to set up many PPP projects to pilot and then mainstream PPP in Urban Infra.

Approval in a couple of Months.

This PID says they have talked to many city corps But in Bangalore there is no council in place since Nov 2006.
Vinay Baindur
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http://www.adb.org/Documents/PIDs/41006012.asp
Promoting Public-Private Partnerships in Urban Infrastructure in India : India

Timetable
Project Number 41006-01
TA Name Promoting Public-Private Partnerships in Urban Infrastructure in India
Type/Modality of Assistance [Proposed]
Technical Assistance Special Fund US$2.0 million
Thematic Classification Sustainable Economic Growth
Private Sector Development
Capacity Development
Description Background. Urban areas in India are growing, and have been the key drivers of the manufacturing- and services-led economic growth. However, inadequate urban infrastructure is becoming an important constraint on faster economic growth. The urban infrastructure investments have to be accelerated to address the existing gaps and meet the growing urban basic service demand of the burgeoning urban population. The Government of India has launched the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) in 2005 with Rs 50,000 crores ($12 billion) outlay over sever year duration. Both the JNNURM reforms and financing needs are likely to encourage urban infrastructure PPPs in JNNURM cities.

The Government's efforts to encourage PPPs. The Government of India has initiated a number of steps to promote PPPs for infrastructure development. These steps include: (i) establishment of a PPP cell in the Department of Economic Affairs in the Ministry of Finance; (ii) setting up the India Infrastructure Finance Company Limited; (iii) creating a viability gap fund; (iv) forming an inter-ministerial group to determine pre-qualification of bidders under PPP; and (v) preparing PPP toolkits and model concession agreements. A number of mandatory and optional reforms of JNNURM will create enabling governance and institutional framework, leading to greater interest and investments by private sector in urban infrastructure development.

Constraints for urban infrastructure PPPs. Review of the relevant literature indicates a number of reasons for reluctance on part of private sector to assume commercial risks in majority of the urban infrastructure sub-sectors. Urban sector, by and large, has to deal with third-tier governments, which bring additional elements of legal, policy, regulatory and implementation challenges. The urban sector also has to confront with a challenging legacy of very low tariffs, poor efficiencies in urban basic service delivery, poor capacities in the urban local bodies (ULBs), and inertia to reform laws, regulations and policies to encourage and enable urban infrastructure PPPs.

The commercial and political risks of water supply and sewerage projects are high as the projects dependent on other cash flows of ULBs like property taxes. The general financial health of most ULBs is weak. Low tariffs and poor fiscal status of majority of ULBs, in turn, increase the commercial and political risks for a private investor. All put together, many of the urban infrastructure sub-sectors are perceived as a high risk sector, resulting in anemic inflows of private capital. This is, however, likely to change significantly with the deepening of the reforms supported by JNNURM.

Improving prospects for urban infrastructure PPPs through the JNNURM. The following factors resulting from JNNURM are likely to create demand for private capital as well as greater interest of private sector in the urban infrastructure development: (i) part-grant financing by the JNNURM (which is likely to increase the bankability of a number of large urban infrastructure projects) and (ii) the financing gap/needs arising from the state- and city-level contribution for the JNNURM projects. However, for the PPPs to take-off in the urban sector in a large way, a great deal of ground work needs to be done within appropriate sectoral policy environment of respective state governments, and will be largely contingent on the developing shelf of 'bankable' projects, and demonstrating feasibility of urban PPPs in sub-sectors like water supply and sewerage, and urban transport with help of demonstration projects that highlight global best practices in urban PPPs.
Objectives and Scope The proposed TA will complement the ongoing advisory TA for Mainstreaming PPP at State Level, and the TA for Mainstreaming PPP cells at the central line ministries, including MOUD. However, the TA will focus on promoting PPPs in urban infrastructure, and assist selected states and cities in addressing key bottlenecks that will lead to the eventual structuring of bankable urban projects that will attract private capital and/or private sector strategic interests. The long term impact of the TA will be that increased number of cities provide improved urban services by engaging PPP all over India; accelerate economic growth and reduce poverty; and improve urban environment and enhance the quality of life of urban inhabitants. The outcomes of the TA will be that: (i) legal, policy and regulator barriers to PPP at selected state and city-level identified and addressed; (ii) capacity of local government officials to strategize and plan for private sector involvement in urban sectors (water supply, sanitation, solid waste, and urban transport), which includes PPP structuring, transparent and competitive procurement, implementation, and enforcement of PPP contracts strengthened; and (iii) 3 to 4 well structured urban PPPs incorporating private sector efficiencies and capital are brought to financial closure, serving as replicable PPP models for other Indian cities.
Linkage to Country/Sector Strategy The Government of India and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have given high priority for promoting public-private partnerships (PPPs) to accelerate and sustain infrastructure growth in India. ADB has provided technical assistance (TA) to the Government of India for mainstreaming PPPs at state level. In addition, ADB is also processing a TA support to establish PPP cells in all the line ministries at the central government level, including the Ministry of Urban Development (MOUD). Implementing PPPs in urban infrastructure, particularly water supply and sewerage, has been challenging and the progress has been relatively slower than in other infrastructure sub-sectors. The Government of India requested ADB for advisory TA to promote PPPs in urban infrastructure development. The ADB's Country Strategy and Program Update 2006–2008 lays emphasis on supporting PPPs in urban infrastructure development. Likewise, ADB's Innovation and Efficiency Initiative gives greater flexibility to ADB to support sub-sovereign entities to introduce and scale-up innovative PPP modalities. There is need for a separate advisory technical assistance (ADTA) for promoting PPPs in urban infrastructure in India. The proposed ADTA will complement the ongoing TA of ADB for mainstreaming PPPs at state level, however, with specific focus on promoting PPPs in urban infrastructure.
Summary of Environmental and Social Issues The TA will help address institutional and implementation issues for accelerating urban infrastructure development through PPP modalities. It is likely to lead more private sector investments in water supply, sewerage, solid waste management and urban mass transport. And more important, the TA is likely to bring greater private sector efficiencies into these sub-sectors. Both greater investments and efficiencies are likely to have positive impact on basic urban services with direct positive impact on the quality of life of urban poor, and urban environment. Thus, the TA is likely to have positive impact on urban social and environmental issues.
Consultations Planned or Carried Out Extensive consultations have been held by the Mission with governments, city corporations, private sector and financial institutions. The Mission held meetings with the Department of Economic Affairs, Government of India; Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India; Departments of Urban Development in various states including Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka; meetings with city corporations in Ahmedabad, Pune, Mumbai, Nagpur, Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Chennai and Bangalore. The mission also met a number of important urban infrastructure financial intermediaries, consulting firms active in urban infrastructure, and private firms interested in water supply, solid waste and sanitation.
Responsible ADB Officer Mr. Sekhar Bonu
Responsible ADB Department South Asia Department
Responsible ADB Division Urban Development Division, SARD
Executing Agencies Department of Economic Affairs

Ministry of Finance

Top
Timetable
Fact Finding 10 Apr 2007 to 20 Apr 2007
Approval 26 Oct 2007

World Bank Issues Implementation Plan for Anticorruption Strategy

2007-08-30T11:26:00.000+05:30

freedominfo.org - IFTI Watch Update, August 28, 2007

http://www.freedominfo.org

Washington, DC, August 28, 2007 - The World Bank has released its long-awaited "implementation plan" for its governance and anticorruption strategy, but the document is much shorter and less specific that the guiding Bank "strategy" set in March, according to a new article posted today on freedominfo.org's IFTI Watch column.

While the plan includes some new revelations, it does not specifically mention media development or support for freedom of information, nor does it propose any changes to the Bank's own disclosure policy, something Bank officials previously have said would occur.

Please follow the link below to read the full article:

http://www.freedominfo.org

Indian poor pay the price of power and water sector reform

2007-08-29T12:18:00.000+05:30

The following three articles show a clear pattern of the costs of privatization which are borne by the poor of our country. - Vinay Baindur

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"Power privatisation model a total failure"
Staff Reporter

Independent audit and CBI probe demanded
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Delhi BJP president lays the blame on the Chief Minister

Entire privatisation process should be reviewed: Bardhan

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NEW DELHI: Cutting across party lines, political leaders at a meeting here on Thursday strongly criticised the privatisation of the power distribution network in the Capital five years ago and proclaimed that the model had proved a failure.

At the meeting attended by residents' welfare associations, activists, power engineers, trade union members, legal experts and technocrats, the participants described the Delhi privatisation model as a "total failure".

"The all-party meeting was an attempt to evaluate the views of all stakeholders of Delhi and see if we agree on the results of the five years of privatisation. Nobody expressed any satisfaction at all," said Sanjay Kaul of People's Action who conducted the meeting.

"Three proposals were put to the floor and all of these were passed unanimously," he said.

Delhi BJP president Harsh Vardhan spoke disparagingly about almost every aspect of the deal, be it service, billing, fast running meters or power cuts. He pinned the blame on the Chief Minister and accused her of ignoring the consumers' interests.

Communist Party of India general secretary A. B. Bardhan praised the RWAs for having taken the fight to the streets and said a similar agitation must be undertaken to have the entire privatisation process reviewed beginning with the Electricity Act, 2003, which he described as fundamentally flawed.

Congress MLA S.C. Vats said his work as Public Accounts Committee Chairman was to give answers to the citizens about the truth behind the privatisation deal. He said the Electricity Act, 2003, must be reviewed.

The meeting ended with an agreement to put pressure on the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission to review the performance of the past five years through an independent audit and force the Government though agitation to order a CBI probe into the entire deal.

© Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu

Date:10/08/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/08/10/stories/2007081059830300.htm

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RWAs complain against inflated power bills Sujay Mehdudia

Delhi Cabinet sentiment reflects the common man's plight

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The RWAs are also exploring the option of taking the matter to court `The power companies have unleashed a trail of terror in a systematic manner'
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NEW DELHI: The "strong sentiment'' expressed by the Delhi Cabinet this past week on the "deteriorating power scenario'' in the Capital is reflective of the sentiments of lakhs of consumers who have been undergoing harassment and mental trauma at the hands of indifferent private power companies and an equally indifferent Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission.

The residents' welfare associations across the city are hardly impressed with the "concern'' shown by the Delhi Cabinet or Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and have termed the decision to summon the heads of Reliance Energy and Tata Power as a ploy to mislead the people of Delhi.

"Why was Mr. Anil Ambani not summoned in June and July when power cuts had peaked? It is nothing but a façade to hide the misdeeds of the power companies who have been vested with unprecedented powers to harass the common man,'' remarked People's Action president Sanjay Kaul, leading a federation of RWAs in protest against the indifferent attitude of the private power companies.

The United Residents Joint Action (URJA), another platform of RWAs, has filed a complaint with the Petitions Committee of the Delhi Assembly headed by senior Congress MLA S. C. Vats on the issue of inflated bills, fast running meters and harassment by the enforcement wings of the private power companies.

The RWAs are also exploring the option of taking the matter to court as they believe it is an infringement of the Fundamental Rights of individuals.

"The power companies have unleashed a trail of terror in a systematic manner. People are being slapped with inflated bills and then with cases of theft. If they do not compromise they are subjected to unending harassment with the Delhi Government and the DERC looking on as mute spectators,'' Mr. Kaul added.

It is no secret that the performance of the power companies has been dismal, but North Delhi Power Limited (NDPL) has done considerably well in comparison. As for the DERC, not only the RWAs but even the Public Accounts Committee of the Delhi Assembly headed by Dr. Vats has come out strongly against it for being ineffective in solving problems relating to the consumers.

The PAC had stated that the DERC had failed to discharge its duties and it should seek the accountability of the power companies rather than act in their interest.

"There is hardly any accountability in the system. We are accountable to the people of Delhi and have to go among the people to seek votes. This should be kept in mind before arriving at any decision,'' said a senior Minister.

© Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu

Date:26/11/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/11/26/stories/2006112610800400.htm

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Time-of-day metering in Delhi soon
Staff Reporter

Plan to introduce system draws heavy flak from residents' welfare associations

NEW DELHI: Even as the Delhi Government's Power Department is all set to introduce time-of-day (ToD) metering in the city, residents' welfare associations anticipating a steep increase in electricity charges have sharply criticised the move.

Delhi, which will become the first State in the country to have ToD in the residential sector, will encourage consumers to shift consumption of power from peak to off-peak hours. The incentive to do so will be cheaper rates for power consumed during off-peak hours.

Different tariff slabs

After implementation of ToD metering, there will be different tariff slabs for peak hours, off-peak hours and normal time of the day. Consumers using electricity during peak hours, 6-30 p.m. to 10-30 p.m. will have to pay as much as Rs.6.40 per unit, while off-peak hours, 10-30 p.m. to 6-30 a.m., would have them pay as low as Rs.1.60 per unit.

"We have already had a meeting with the discoms and they have agreed to change the meters to make them compliant with the ToD system. We have been regularly meeting RWAs to explain the concept of ToD metering to them and the response has been good. The Department is now looking forward to the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission's approval," said a senior Power Department official.

The Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Management Centre of Delhi Transco Limited had launched the Delhi Energy Efficiency Programme (DEEP) in association with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in May this year to study the consumption pattern in the domestic sector so that a scheme for implementation of ToD system could be introduced.

Pilot project

The metering, which will be started as a pilot project in three localities in the city, has, however, drawn severe all-round criticism from the RWAs, who have sought a meeting with the DERC on the issue."If this proposal is accepted, electricity bills will shoot up by 20 per cent on an average," said M.K. Choudhary, a former official of Delhi Transco.

He further added: "Remember that the electronic meters are configured to record minute power usage — so at peak times, using even your mobile charger will yield higher readings."Pointing out that ToD is a mechanism designed for industry and not retail customers, Sanjay Kaul president of People's Action said: "A factory owner can start a third shift starting midnight if he saves substantially on power rates, but it is very unlikely that a family will stop using appliances of necessity or start having a bath at 4 a.m. just because power is cheaper and they can save on the geyser. The result will be, as we can all imagine, that power bills will shoot up further."

© Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu

Indian Subnational Finances and the IMF

2007-08-28T11:43:00.000+05:30

Our ex secretary at the Finance Ministry who was a member of the EFC and maybe even advising the CCEA joined the IMF this year: Adarsh Kishore

- Vinay Baindur

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.cfm?sk=21235.0

The TFC report is also a case of the Consultants doing a job through IIMA and other places
The summary clearly brings out how the fin coms are an important place for many civil society groups to target so that we can keep a track of this like the 13th FC (which will rear its head anytime). The commercialisation and market orientation is more important and that is most CRUCIAL for the IMF etc . NOW THAT STABILIZATION IS CLOSE TO BEING ACHIEVED how far does this make goal of MDGs and poverty alleviation

So remarkable that the conditions are now not being pushed NOT so much by the IFIs but BY OUR OWN COUNTRY SYSTEMS we can see the examples of EIA and NEP, NURM and UIDSSMT, and also others like TFC etc

Indian Subnational Finances: Recent Performance

Author/Editor: Kishore, Adarsh | Prasad, A.
Authorized for Distribution: August 1, 2007
Electronic Access: Free Full Text (PDF file size is 375KB)
Use the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view this PDF file.

Disclaimer: This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF. The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate.

Summary: The fiscal performance of the States in India has been an area of concern for quite some time. The Twelfth Finance Commission (TFC) recommended a three-pronged strategy to alleviate States' fiscal distress, built around greater orientation toward market discipline, incentives for fiscal consolidation targets, and commitment to fiscal correction. We find that States have created fiscal space through raising revenues and reducing and reprioritizing expenditures. Looking ahead, expansion of fiscal space is essential to meet the States' large infrastructure and social needs in order to alleviate bottlenecks to growth. This needs to be accomplished without undermining fiscal sustainability.

Who Wants the World Bank Anyway?

2007-08-27T06:49:00.000+05:30

For Immediate Release Deepika D’Souza +91-(0)-9820039557
DATE 2007 Harsh Dobhal +91-(0) 9818569021

Announcing the Independent People’s Tribunal on the World Bank in India

The scandal-ridden World Bank, recently in the headlines for a corruption scandal involving then-President Wolfowitz, will face deep scrutiny when the Independent People’s Tribunal on the World Bank in India opens next month in New Delhi. More than 50 groups from around India will assemble before an international jury to present their grievances against World Bank projects and policies.

“Since Independence, the World Bank has been shaping India’s development agenda. But there has never been a systematic attempt to evaluate it. Since the authorities work hand-in-glove with the Bank, it is we the people who must call the World Bank to account,” says Misha Singh of the Tribunal secretariat. “The Tribunal is an opportunity for people who have been impacted by the World Bank to express their grievances and propose alternatives.”

There are plenty of grievances. In addition to pushing well-known infrastructure projects like the Narmada dams, the World Bank has been instrumental, if less visible, in crafting many of today’s controversial economic policies, such as the privatisation of water supplies. As Bhaskar Goswami says, “Food grain availability in India is at its lowest level since 1973. Farmers and adivasis are being driven off their lands. Everyone is losing access to water and basic services. In short, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The policies that create this situation can all be traced back to the World Bank. It is the WB recommendations to the government that laid the foundation for these ill-conceived policies.”

In an effort to broaden the debate in the country, the tribunal also aims to dispute the World Bank’s self-appointed role as the source of all knowledge and expertise on development. “For too many years, the experts told us to take their bitter economic medicine, it will make the economy stronger. But people are losing livelihoods, land, rights, access to education and health care. It is time that we stopped listening to so-called experts and started listening to the common people,” said Deepika D’Souza of the World Bank Tribunal Secretariat. The Tribunal will call on both academics and ordinary people who have been directly affected by World Bank policies and projects.

The Independent People’s Tribunal on the World Bank in India will take place on the campus of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, from 21-24 September 2007. For more information, contact:
World Bank Tribunal Secretariat

www.worldbanktribunal.org

secretariat@worldbanktribunal.org

c/o WBT, Flat No. 14, Supreme Enclave,
Mayur Vihar Phase 1, New Delhi 110091
###

World Bank Wanes in Importance?

2007-08-27T06:36:00.000+05:30

The World Bank continues to impact decisions of governments in many ways, amongst them, the restructuring of laws pertaining to private enterprise. Anyone who thinks the World Bank is becoming increasingly insignificant should consider the following article. The point is not the merit or shortcomings of specific reforms, whats at issue is the weight the Banks rating system has in determining government policy.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/
Setting_up_business_will_soon_be_easier_for_firms/articleshow/2312831.cms

ECONOMIC TIMES

Setting up business will soon be easier for firms
27 Aug, 2007, 0030 hrs IST,M K VENU, TNN

NEW DELHI: Life will soon be easier for companies that are setting up new businesses. They will have all government clearances in place in just half the time, thanks to a joint initiative by the various ministries involved. The ministries of industry, labour, corporate affairs and finance have worked together to reduce the time taken to obtain various clearances from 305 days to 166 days.

Companies will also be able to avoid some 120 procedures that they have to go through to meet the requirements of the labour, land and revenue departments. The government’s new initiative follows a World Bank report which rates India quite low in the ‘ease of doing business index’.

Apart from registering a new business, companies face a series of procedures like getting approval for Memorandum and Articles of Association, obtaining the unique income-tax numbers (PAN & TAN) and registration for value-added tax. Along with a host of procedures, they also have to establish the employees provident fund, all of which are time-consuming. The government’s attempt is to cut the time considerably.

The Centre will soon inform the World Bank about the reduced procedures so that the bank can incorporate them in its yearly publication that rates countries based on the ease of doing business. The annual report for 2006 and 2007 rates India at 134 among the 175 countries listed. Interestingly, Pakistan is placed well ahead in this list at 74.

Reacting to the World Bank report, the government had set up a committee of secretaries to look into the whole issue. The panel studied procedures adopted and the time taken by the various ministries in giving clearances.

After an elaborate exercise, some new models, which substantially cut the number of procedures and the time taken to complete these, have been adopted. On its part, the ministry of small-scale industry has initiated quicker procedures to help closure of small and medium enterprises that are not registered under the Companies Act 1956.

The cabinet secretary will formally be apprised of the new models this week. The Centre has also written to chief secretaries of all states and union territories to adopt the best practices in other states. Many state governments have responded to this by setting up task forces to reduce procedural hassles.

The World Bank essentially considers 10 criteria to assess the ease of doing business. These are: ease of starting business, getting a licence, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, cross-border trade, enforcing contracts and closing a business.

Judged on these factors, countries like Singapore, Japan, Australia, United States, Britain, Canada and some other European economies are rated at the top. Most emerging economies, like India, do not feature among the top 50.

Legal Intrusions

2007-08-26T16:35:00.000+05:30

An extract from India’s 1991 Structural Adjustment Loan with the IBRD (major lending arm of the World Bank)

A condition of the loan: ‘That the Borrower has introduced in its Parliament a Bill to amend its Sick Industrial Companies Act of 1985 (SICA), satisfactory to the Bank…’ (schedule 4)

Under the agreement, the Bank is given the discretion to withdraw funds if it is not satisfied on evidence satisfactory to it that this has occurred (see schedule 1 para 4 (c))
The point is not the virtues or pitfalls of the Sick Industrial Companies Act of 1985. The incorporation of terms like this represent an explicit circumvention of democratic process and parliamentary accountability. This is just one example. The people India, not the Bank, should stimulate Indian political and policy change. This intrusion must stop!

Crime And Reward: Immunity To The World Bank

2007-08-26T10:20:00.000+05:30

Crime And Reward: Immunity To The World Bank
Analysis , by Anu Muhammad , 3-October-2005

URL: http://meghbarta.org/nws/nw_main_p02b.php?issueId=7§ionId=30&articleId=75

The Bill and the Questions

The Government of Bangladesh has submitted a bill in the National Parliament on 31 October 2004 seeking legal immunity for multilateral lending agencies, especially the World Bank. Finance Minister M Saifur Rahman introduced the bill under the title "The International Financial Organisations Order (Amendment) Act 2004". According to the press report (New Age, 1 November 2004) the minister insisted in supporting the bill though he did admit that there was no precedence of such immunity. The above bill read, "The Bank shall enjoy immunity from every form of legal process...no action shall be brought against the Bank, by any agency, or by any entity or person, and there shall be recourse to such special procedures for the settlement of controversies between the Bank and the government or the agency or entity or person as the case may be....Property and assets of the Bank shall wheresoever located and by whomsoever held be immune from all forms of seizure, attachment or execution, before the delivery of final judgement against the Bank." No legal action will be allowed against the employees for their activities as long as they act in an official capacity at the directive of the lending agency.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Asian development Bank (ADB) were earlier granted immunity in 1972 and 1973; the World Bank was thereafter accorded the partial immunity. Now the government of Bangladesh has taken the obliging step not to correct the wrong but to complete the wrong, by giving full immunity to the World Bank.

The World Bank formally asked the government for the legal immunity about three years ago. It was reported that the World Bank (WB) became impatient to obtain a total immunity in Bangladesh. Why? What wrong has it done for which it needs the cover of immunity for saving its skin? Why is the government moving fast to give full fledged immunity to the World Bank? Why does the government need to afford the Bank protection? What makes the champion of transparency and development nervous of the court and public scrutiny? Is it only to keep the reported internal irregularities under carpet or something more? We are concerned for reasons I would like to explain.

The Projects of Development or Destruction?

Since 1972 the World Bank along with IMF, ADB and other international agencies has been playing a leading role in formulating policies and monitoring implementation of its agenda. It has been working in different ways to influence the direction of the economy of countries like Bangladesh according to the needs and strategies of global power.

We have thousands of projects conceived and monitored by the World Bank and/or its allies in different fields. The projects for energy development, poverty reduction, forestation, flood control and irrigation, education, health, industry, financial sector and what not? We are unwittingly overburdened by unproductive loans whose interest servicing takes an ever increasing toll of our hard earned foreign currencies. But what do the projects brings us? What benefits come from these projects? We have piles of projects: and we have more and more millions of people living under poverty line; we have permanent water logging and more frequent floods in the wake of flood control projects; we have arsenic in the water all across the country after successful and failed implementation of projects of ground water; we get monocrop after losing diverse agriculture and boom in poisonous production through implementing projects in agriculture; we lost our authority over our natural gas resources and we have to pay more for gas and electricity after implementation of energy projects; we find huge coastal area permanently damaged in the wake of shrimp projects; we undergo loss of natural forests because of implementing foreign currency earning projects; we have sick and decaying public sector education and health to see growth of handicapped but expensive private sector, we find basic industry like steel mills and large jute mills shut down after implementing projects aimed at economic growth and industrialization! People have been suffering, material and human loss is unaccountable. People of Bangladesh are being made more debt-shackled for these projects and more vulnerable. But, we know, there are beneficiaries of these projects too. The rich and powerful, local and foreign, have been reaping a bonanza from these projects. The vulgar rise of super rich in a 'poor' country has direct links with these projects.

Then who will be accountable for the damages wrought by these projects? What about the evaluation of the past disasters for avoiding their repeat? No money, no initiative for that from the powerful. The bigger the projects, the better since it means more money in pocket, more expensive cars, and more indulgent lives for consultants, commission agents-ministers-bureaucrats and business elites. Projects like the above ensure market for big corporate bodies, projects help to expand space for them, they ensure life long heavenly life for international consultants and bureaucrats of the agencies like the World Bank. In the latest move by the agency, PRSP [read: poverty re(pro)duction strategy paper], a new comprehensive assault on the people is on the making in a similar line of the 'development efforts' so far. The local beneficiaries are also excited with starry eyes about the prospects.

Steps Towards Grabbing

We have massive evidence to expose the real aim of the projects and the face of the development agencies. Earlier, I discussed on manufacturing sector ( Closure of manufacturing units: victory of Anti-Industrial Development Projects?), water and flood control projects (Projects of Mass Destruction) and on Foreign Direct Investment (Global coalition and FDI) where I found the World Bank as a key player behind disastrous development. Here let me shed some light on a specific area: energy sector the area of power and natural gas to understand the steps of the agency.

Elaborate discourse by the World Bank on Energy sector of Bangladesh was first made in 1982. It was a report of the Joint World Bank/UNDP Energy Sector Assessment Program. The report was kept secret in the same line as most of other reports of these agencies. This report was based on the findings of the Energy Assessment Mission undertaken during October 1981. The report seemed firm about the size of the gas reserves, even though no scientific corroboration was cited. Even 10tcf gas was considered as "substantial economically recoverable natural gas reserves" which according to their estimate "at present consumption levels would last for several decades." The report also suggested creating an atmosphere for entry of multinational oil companies. Moreover, it continued, since "the supply of gas is likely to remain well in excess of Bangladesh's expected internal needs for a substantial period of time" they offered different export options including "export of gas through a pipeline to India". So, the issue of disastrous production sharing contracts and exporting gas is not a recent phenomenon, the option was prescribed two decades ago by the World Bank et al.

A similar scenario can be seen in power generation and distribution. How the Government, Rural Electrification Board (REB) and Palli Bidyut Samity (PBS), have been coming into terms and where the World Bank and its window International Development Association (IDA) stand in the process are the matters of importance to understand the 'development' in Power sector. Both REB and PBS were born through earlier projects. Agreements with IDA and undertakings obtained from the government might help in this regard. According to the agreements, the report of the World Bank of 1982 says, "(1) GOB will lend Credit proceeds to REB, and REB will transfer assets to PBSs, on terms satisfactory to IDA, and the local component of project cost will be provided by GOB to REB as a grant.... (2) GOB will cover any deficit from REB's operation in future. (3) GOB will initially subsidize the difference between an agreed bulk tariff for BPDB supply to PBSs, and PBS payments based on their ability to recover costs, according to a formula satisfactory to IDA. (4) GOB will submit to IDA, by December 31, 1982, a satisfactory formula to calculate and adjust the BPDB bulk tariff to PBSs, and BPDB to implement it thereafter". The agreement confirmed all conditionality of the World Bank to begin a 'power transmission network' with the Government and the BPDB as the bearer of all excess costs 'satisfactory to IDA'. Huge subsidy from the people to the corporate bodies!

In October 1996, as a follow-up of similar other projects, the Government of Bangladesh approved a private sector power generation policy (PPGP). Its essence was that new power generation capacity would be created through multinational corporations in power sector usually called as Independent Power Producer (IPP). And the new power generators would be constructed on a Build- Own- Operate (BOO) basis. Although there was "absence of prior experience by the Power Cell (a newly set window under energy ministry, GOB) in dealing with IPP projects" projects have been taken temporarily by the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) "in inviting and finalizing bids from IPPs". Finally, the World Bank made its 'expectation' clear that in the future only the Power Cell would be processing Independent Power Producer projects.

To make investment in Bangladesh's power sector lucrative for multinational corporations, the World Bank offered a number of prescriptions in 1997. These included: (1) the commercialization of BPDB's generation assets and establishment of profit centers; (2) the commercialization and corporatization of the distribution units; (3) private sector participation by way of rehabilitation, operation and maintenance (ROM) contracts in selected profit centers; and (4) BPDB's proposed direct investment in four public sector power generation projects (Barapukuria coal based, Shahjibazar, Baghabari, Sylhet gas turbines) to be postponed and these to be carried out through IPPs. These asked, in clear terms, to dismantle another public sector organization and pave the path for the multinational companies in power sector, i.e., IPPs and to subsidize these efforts by public money.

Things proceeded accordingly. After IPPs were given contracts the cost of electricity to the citizens of Bangladesh, as happened with the gas, also increased by more than 200 percent. And similar to the experience of the public institution for gas exploration and distribution (Petrobangla), which was given the burden to purchase gas from multinational oil companies at a higher price, in foreign exchange, BPDB, another public institution for power production and distribution, was also given the same burden. As a consequence, Bangladesh Power Development Board shared the fate of Petrobangla in incurring losses. This pattern was already evident by 1998. Since then, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank have applied pressure to ensure payments accruing to the multinational corporations. This is usual lobbying.

It should not be regarded surprising that the Bank has maintained silence on the compensation payment from UNOCAL, US oil giant, to Bangladesh which has been outstanding for many years now amounting to more than tk 60 billion. On the contrary, the Bank has applied inordinate pressure to close down Adamjee jute mills and boat about 100 thousand people down under poverty line on sham accusation of loss making of tk 12 billion in 30 years!

Since mid 90s, foreign direct investment increased dramatically. Presence of Multinational Corporations (MNCs) in gas, electricity, hybrid and telecommunication became visible, and new contracts were being signed in gas, telecommunication and power sectors. After working long to pave the way for this anti-development foreign direct investment, the World Bank shifted its emphasis for gas sector. In 1999, the World Bank stated that the nature of foreign direct investment "has implied little augmentation of foreign exchange reserves", because, "the bulk of FDI in the power sector so far is made up of imports (e.g. pre-fabricated barge mounted power plants); so are capital costs of IOCs engaged in the gas sector, and much of the foreign investment and lending in the telecom sector finance imports of telecommunications equipment".

The World Bank, therefore, made it clear that, "the import intensity of FDI inflows and subsequent profit repatriation and interest payments imply a worsening current account deficit associated with FDI." In order to understand reasons behind World Bank's unusual recognition of adverse effects of foreign direct investment in Bangladesh one has to go further to read their suggestion: "there is no discernible accumulation of foreign exchange reserves in the absence of gas exports". The prescription offered in 1982, i.e., export of gas, appeared as a compulsion in 1999.

Therefore, if we sketch the steps taken by the World Bank and its allies in the energy sector we find the following:

Step 1: Study on Energy to provide a policy prescription to restructure and downsize public sector organizations in order to create space for others.

Step 2: Argument followed that the foreign private investment would provide an inflow of foreign currency, would ensure remarkable development of the energy sector and would contribute to develop other sectors as well. Precondition of this was to downsize or dismantling public institutions.

Step 3: Constant advocacy for raising price of gas and electricity.

Step 4: Gas blocks awarded to the Multinational Corporations. According to the contract, Bangladesh is bound to purchase its own gas with more than double of present price and with foreign currency. National exploration agency has been kept idle. Budget deficit and negative effect on foreign exchange reserve increased. Similar things happened in power sector.

Step 5: Further increase of the price of gas and power, export of gas are prescribed to avert further crisis and to ensure further development.

The results of these steps have been disastrous for the economy and the people. Because, (1) price of gas and power on a continuous increase, as a result of that (2) cost of production in every level increased which resulted fall in competitiveness of Bangladeshi goods; (3) hard earned currency are being used to purchase gas and electricity which could be bought with local currency at a much cheaper rate (4) dismantling of local production skill and exploration establishment; (5) losses of BPDB and Petrobangla becoming huge; (6) common property becomes private property being used to maximize profit and (7) public resource like natural gas becomes huge liability.

This is a pattern of working of the World Bank and its allies, a 'road map' to ensure gravitation of businesses to big corporate bodies and yet creating and trumpeting a myth that they are working for the people and development of the poor countries.

USGAO reports on the US body

Nobody can deny, in the face of overwhelming facts and evidence that the World Bank, despite its rhetoric, is effectively an extension of US administration. It was born in the US, it is compulsorily headed by a US citizen and all its decisions are influenced or monitored by the US administration, the US treasury in particular. This assertion is documented by a report prepared by United States General Accountant Office (USGAO) that investigated the World Bank's operations and policy implementation performance. The report says that the World Bank operations support the US economic and foreign policy. It shows the link between the Bank and the US government clear, "through the Secretary of the Treasury and the US Executive Director, the United States influences the Bank to take actions consistent with the US post-Cold War foreign policy agenda.... The Bank promotes economic development consistent with the US interests". According to the report published in the US media "for every $1 contributed to the World Bank and IDA over the years, the country (US) got roughly $2 back in business for American firms that bid on contracts involved in providing this aid." This is much more in many cases in Bangladesh. The World Bank, therefore, can be viewed as the US institution, that takes care of the US corporate investment, and works as an instrument to bargain with different countries to protect the US imperial interest. So, the Bank, in other words, is obligated not to promote any kind of development, which is inconsistent with the US and other corporate interests.

The World Bank's project performance reviews often present devastating pictures. Such a conclusion was also noted by the USGAO. After investigating many projects around the world the organization also observed that, "in terms of achieving project objectives, the Bank's rate of success is much higher in meeting physical objectives (e.g., completing buildings and administering social services) than in improving market and policy conditions for economic growth." In fact, the discussions on success or failure of projects sometime ignore the World Bank's agenda. The agenda is acknowledged in World Bank's own documents that indicate that the Bank was structured to 'promote private foreign investment'. The documents continued by stating that the Bank "has many of the characteristics of a private sector institution. It is organized as a stock corporation, with voting rights proportional to equity investment. It finances itself in private capital markets, through medium-and long term bond issues on commercial terms, applying conservative financial policies that have earned and preserved a triple-A bond rating...It has consistently earned a profit over $1billion "

Corruption and Immunity to the Coalition

The World Bank always tries to make a point against corruption, tries to show that they are pursuing programmes to curb corruption in Bangladesh and elsewhere. Lie! History and geography show that never and nowhere the World Bank feels happy with the governments who really want to be free from corruption. Corruption is all pervasive in Bangladesh, but that is exactly the reason the Bank finds here a very strong support base. How can institutions like this survive without the life support of the corrupts? How can otherwise the pernicious projects World Bank pursues be endorsed?

In fact the World Bank does enjoy the status of 'sovereign body', entering everywhere but with no accountability. It appears that the agency needs now to have that status fully legalised. The present government's move to give immunity to the World Bank is not inconsistent. It is also consistent with its recent agreement with the US government to give immunity to the US nationals (especially US Army) from any trial for their crime (planning to commit?) in Bangladesh. Government spokesmen, ministers Saifur Rahman and Moudud Ahmed in particular, strongly defended the immunity move recently by saying that responsibility of all the projects lie with the government. Very much true, indeed! The governments, present and past, are primarily responsible for all disasters made through development projects and otherwise. They must explain and should stand before trial. Then why the immunity law? Why is legal process being blocked? Let the court identify responsible parties and the degree of their crime.

We understand their problem. A coalition is there which smells trouble in the air. World Bank along with other agencies, local policymakers i.e., ministers, bureaucrats, consultants, commission agents are the honourable members of the coalition. It seems that all of those need to keep their misdeeds out of bounds for public scrutiny; they need to seal for ever the possibility of opening the Pandora's Box to show the ugly faces!

But even if the government gives immunity people will not. There are number of public trials already held in different parts of the world. The number will increase at a faster rate. The global institutions like the World Bank, by their worldwide similar operations, provoke affected billions of people to raise voice against them, to create global resistance. Governmental immunity will not be able to save them from that people power nor will the local goons, the beneficiary groups, be spared for ever.

Refernces:

Anu Muhammad(2004): "Bangladesh Waterlogged Again", Evonomic And Political Weekly, July 31-August 6.

..........................(2004): "Foreign Direct Investment and Utilization of Natural Gas in Bangladesh" in
http://www.networkideas.org/featart/jul2004/fa26_FDI_Gas.htm

...........................(2003): "Bangladesh's Integration into Global Capitalist System: Policy Direction and the Role of Global Institutions", in Matiur Rahman (ed) Globalisation, Environmental Crisis and Social Change in Bangladesh, UPL, Dhaka.

...........................(2002): "Closure of Adamjee Jute Mills: Victory of Anti-Industrial Development (AID) Project?" Daily Star, July 23.

World Bank and UNDP (1982): Bangladesh: Issues and Options in the Energy Sector.

World Bank (1997): Public Expenditure Review 1997 Update. Making the Best Use of Public Resources, August.

The World Bank & The Asian Development Bank (1998): Bangladesh: Economic Trends and the Policy Agenda, May.

World Bank (1999) : Foreign Direct Investment in Bangladesh: Issues of long run Sustainability. October

And Still More Loan Conditionalities

2007-08-24T09:59:00.000+05:30

A New project worth 1.6bn tied to YET MORE changes in India's laws.
The Independent People's Tribunal on the World Bank in India will
explore this avenue (policy lending) by which the nations governance structures
are undermined and the bank and its beneficiaries open up avenues
for private capital.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Finance/
ADB_World_Bank_to_give_16_bn_aid_to_India/articleshow/2281645.cms

ADB, World Bank to give $1.6 bn aid to India

Economic times

NEW DELHI: Asian Development Bank and World Bank have agreed to provide financial assistance of $1.6 billion for strengthening the rural cooperative credit structure in the country, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Tuesday.

Of the total, ADB would give one billion dollars while the rest would be provided by World Bank, Minister of State for Finance Pawan Kumar Bansal said in a written reply.

The World Bank assistance is proposed in the form of loan of US 300 million from International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and a credit of USD 300 million from International Development Assistance (IDA, he added.

The government has approved a Rs 13,596 crore revival package to strengthen Short Term Rural Cooperative Credit Structure (STCCS), comprising state cooperative banks (SCBs), district central cooperative banks (DCCBs) and primary agriculture credit societies (PACS), Bansal said.

States willing to implement the package are required to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with central government and NABARD for carrying out certain legal and institutional reforms.

In order to ensure that STCCS continues on sound financial managerial and governance norms, technical assistance is to be provided to upgrade institutional and human resources, computerisation and setting up proper internal control and accounting systems.

Higher Education

2007-05-18T15:50:00.000+05:30

An Overview on Higher Education

The crisis in higher education is endemic. Higher education requires to be greatly expanded - currently only about 7% of the relevant age group is engaged in studies in institutions of higher studies. The necessary rate of expansion would only be possible with adequate public funding and regulation. In particular, the need to go beyond the elite and to provide access to a wider section of the country's population, means that such expansion cannot be expected from, or left to, private agencies. Yet public funding is being withdrawn from existing institutions and the pressure is on facilitating the entry of private players both local and foreign.

The impetus for the present strategy owes much to the World Bank report brought out in 1994. The report argues that developing countries do not require to invest funds in higher education as primary and secondary education should be their priority. Higher education is termed a `private good' allowing the student-consumer to command a better market value for her skills. Hence it is claimed that governments are justified in leaving development of this sector in commercial, or private, hands as students will be paying for benefits that only they enjoy. This approach fails to appreciate the social necessity of a system of adequate, quality higher education. The capacity for critical, independent thought is both intellectually and democratically significant for a dynamic, independent and modern nation. Further the claim that elementary and secondary education have first priority is short-sighted: where would the trained personnel required for the success of universalised school education come from if not from the system of higher education? The present strategy of utilising the services of poorly paid, inadequately trained para-teachers engaged in multi-grade teaching (also a WB strategy for school education) clearly is no solution and exposes the WB approach which is aimed at creating `alternate' streams instead of a strong national system of quality education envisaged during the freedom struggle and promoted by policy makers in the first three decades or so after independence.

The WB perspective also dovetails smoothly with the perspective underlying the WTO-enforced General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) which converts knowledge into a tradeable commodity. The increasingly competitive sphere of a globalized system of higher education is dominated by the industrialized developed countries. Norms, values, language, concerns and scientific innovations at this center crowd out other ideas and research practices. These countries not only have the dominant institutions but are also home to the multinational corporations that are becoming so powerful in the new global knowledge system based on `marketing intellectual products'.

Higher education institutions in developing countries have a special role to play in the strengthening of civil society and national development. If subjected to the WTO strictures, they would be unable to perform this function and the perception that universities serve a broad public good would be accordingly weakened. In a world clearly divided into `centers' and `peripheries', with pronounced inequalities, questions of self-reliance and or sovereignty itself would obviously be adversely affected.

During the period of last two decades a lot of changes have occurred in the Indian system of education in line with the policies prescribed by the World Bank. For example, the country has witnessed a phenomenal increase in the number of technical education institutions. A great deal of this growth has come from the establishment of private, aided as well as self-financing institutions, particularly in engineering, computer application and business management disciplines. Today nearly one crore young people are enrolled in higher educational institutions, of whom about one-fifth are estimated to have been enrolled in technical education. The virtual explosion in the number of technical institutions, fuelled by speculative rather than real demand and exploited by self-financing enterprises, has resulted in technical education expanding beyond sustainable levels. If the systems of planning and regulation are unable to shape the supply and demand in the coming period, such imbalances are very likely to be extended to the other fields too.

Adverse consequences of this mushrooming growth are already visible in the form of supply of poor quality of education by the newly opened higher education institutions (HEIs). In spite of the phenomenal growth vacant seats continue to also exist in many institutions. Vacant seats range from 5 percent to 25 percent depending on the branch, discipline, region and institution. While the faculty to student ratio is generally poor in most of the institutions, it is particularly bad in many of the newly created institutions because of poor infrastructure and serious shortage of adequately qualified teachers, resulting in these institutions churning out poorly educated graduates, who remain unemployed for a considerable period of time.

The employers as well as the educationists are already expressing serious concerns in regard to quality of the graduates coming out of these newly opened institutions of higher and technical education. Barring some exceptions, there is scant regard for maintenance of standards. What is indeed a matter of shock to learn that even those markets that are readymade and where the employers are readily able to hire the talent produced from the sector of higher and technical education the country has failed to create the institutions that are capable to give quality instruction to the manpower. The sector of information technology is one such area where India has witnessed a boom in the education market; however the institutions that were set up during the nineties have failed in providing quality education.

A vast majority of these HEIs have been set up with the aim of imparting only graduate technical education. None of these institutions have any plans to create facilities for research and post graduate education. In the fields of business management, hotel management, architecture, pharmacy and so on the number of Ph.Ds is practically negligible. A serious consequence of an imbalance in the production of sufficient numbers of post-graduates and Ph.Ds. in engineering is the extreme shortage of quality teachers at various levels.

The decade of nineties has been a period of public disinvestment in higher education. The extent of decline in public expenditure on education comes out clearly when we examine the trends in per student expenditure. Decline in per student expenditures means decline in real resources per student on average, seriously affecting the quality of education. As there were steep cuts in budget allocations for libraries, laboratories, scholarships, faculty improvement programmes, etc., it is not difficult to see that there would have been serious adverse effects felt by the higher education institutions. During the decade of nineties the rising cost of higher education is again largely a result of the choice made in favour of the policies of privatisation and commercialisation by the policymakers.

The access to higher education is increasingly becoming a function of paying capacity of the student. Eighty percent of the available engineering seats are in the private sector institutions. The private sector institutions provide over sixty percent of the management seats and over forty percent of the medical seats. The character of private sector institutions is very much commercial in nature and unlike the not-for-profit public sector institutions. But even in the public sector institutions the trend is towards commercialisation. Self-financing courses are on the increase and are affecting the access to higher education in the public sector institutions itself. Even some of the ‘best’ universities-central and state-have chosen to introduce self financing courses even in disciplines such as Economics, Political Science, Social Work, Anthropology, Botany, Zoology, Human genetics Hindi, etc., that are otherwise and / or ought to be provided as normal courses in different universities, charging often fees much higher than the costs, exploiting the ‘excess demand’ phenomenon in higher education.

The practice of increased cost recovery is now very well institutionalized in the case of even the not-for-profit institutions of higher and technical education. The cost recovery rates vary today in their case in the range of twenty five percent to fifty percent. The cost recovery rates are high and have surpassed in some universities the trends of even many developed and developing countries. There exist still very striking differences by economic groups of population in the adult population with respect to their access to higher education. Evidence exists that the trends of privatisation, commercialisation, reduction in financial support to the needy students, increased cost recovery by the public sector educational institutions, cost of specialised coaching for clearing the entrance tests, paid seats, capitation fees, etc., are visibly coming in the way of students who come from the backgrounds of socially and educationally backward class households and the economically deprived sections.

Further, the costs of entry into higher education are becoming higher for the students of these sections due to the factor of increased risk arising on account of the growing uncertainty regarding the work opportunities that the system of education and economy is able to presently generate. After the acquisition of the graduation or post graduation whether the outturns would be able to improve their earnings is an important factor in the decision on whether or not to join a particular course or college for the students of socially and educationally backward classes and economically deprived sections. This has impacted on the students’ choices and in turn the utilisation of capacity created for the faculties of science and humanities in many institutions.

For further communication, please contact:

Sh. Ambarish Rai
Convenor
People's Campaign for Common School System (PCCSS)
E-mail: commonschoolsystem@yahoo.co.in, amb1857@yahoo.com

2007-05-18T15:19:00.000+05:30

Press release : 27 February 2007

Widespread Environmental and Social Concerns Brushed Aside during Envtl Public Hearing on massive expansion plans of West Coast Paper Mills, Dandeli, Karnataka
Financiers of Expansion plans include IFC (World Bank) and ICICI Bank

The 20th February 2007 Environmental Public Hearing for the proposed Rs. 1260 crore expansion and modernisation of West Coast Paper Mills Limited (WCPM) was marred by chaotic scenes of heckling, intimidation, and hooliganism. A team from Environment Support Group, Bangalore visited Dandeli and participated in this public hearing. Even as the presiding officer Ritesh Kumar Singh (District Commissioner of Uttara Kannada District of Karnataka) struggled to restore order to the proceedings, a large group of vocal individuals disrupted the proceedings and misbehaved whenever anyone attempted to express any sort of concerns about WCPM’s operations. As a result, the supposedly ‘public’ hearing was reduced to a promotion event for WCPM with company supporters exclusively waxing eloquent about ‘contributions’ to Dandeli and the surrounding areas.

It is ironic indeed that the public hearing under the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification, 2006 (as part of the mandatory environmental clearance mechanism for pulp and paper manufacturing industries) did not permit fair expression of the very significant environmental and health impacts that WCPM has been repeatedly accused of over the years. It is also shocking that potential social and environmental implications of WCPM’s proposal to secure 68,000 hectares of land (680 sq. km, an area larger than Bangalore) within a 250 km radius of Dandeli were not discussed during the Public Hearing or in the Rapid EIA Report prepared for the proposed expansion.

WCPM was promoted in the year 1955 and is a part of the Kolkata based Shree Kumar Bangur Group of Companies. The company, which is located in the Dandeli reserve forests (and less than 10 kilometres from the Dandeli Wilife Sanctuary), draws all its water requirements from the Kali river. Ever since it commenced operations in 1959, WCPM has been discharging effluents from its industrial processes into the Kali river. The mill, which had an installed initial capacity of 18,000 Metric Tonnes Per Annum (MTPA) in 1959 has since increased its capacity almost ten-fold to 1,76,221 MTPA in 2005-06. WCPM now proposes to carry out an expansion cum modernization program to almost double its overall capacity to 320000 TPA. The expansion is likely to be financed by the International Finance Corporation (World Bank group) and ICICI Bank of India.

WCPM has a proven record of non-compliance on various grounds: production in excess of consented quantities, water use in excess of consented limits, effluents discharged in excess of permitted limits, effluents discharged that violate environmental standards, and illegal use of forest land in contravention of stated purpose. All of the above non-compliances are well-documented, either by regulatory agencies like the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board or the Central Pollution Control Board, or by research institutes and NGOs. Yet, there has been no record of redressing these past violations in any manner either by the regulatory agencies or the ministries concerned.

As a result of continued pollution of the Kali river, there has been sufficient empirical evidence of health impacts (in Dandeli and also in downstream areas) on livestock and human beings from a variety of sources including commissioned studies. The most egregious case was that of an outbreak of gastroenteritis in the region in 2003. There is also sufficient recorded empirical evidence of adverse impact on fishes and fisheries, as well as on the impact of using the Kali water for irrigation on agricultural land. Yet, there has not been any study of these impacts and no serious attempts at redressing the damage done thus far. Even if WCPM has cleaned up its act and has installed a functional Effluent Treatment Plant (as has been claimed), these past damages cannot be ignored and have to be redressed. Most notable is the paucity of information on social and environmental implications of WCPM’s proposed use of 68000 hectares (captive plantations to source raw materials).If people are going to be displaced, WCPM has to rehabilitate them prior to any permitted expansion.

All these matters need be addressed before considering WCPM's application for environmental clearance for the expansion of its production. Undoubtedly, Dandeli’s economy and employment is vitally linked to WCPM’s operations, but this cannot excuse the company’s non-fulfilment of legal and social obligations.
A written representation by ESG highlighting these issues was subsequently submitted by ESG to the Uttara Kannada District Commissioner, and a copy of the representation can be downloaded from www.esgindia.org.
Leo Saldanha
Coordinator
Environment Support Group

Water Privatisation and Commercialisation

2007-05-18T14:47:00.000+05:30

Privatisation of Water in Mumbai’s K East Ward: Many Questions, Few Answers

Tuesday 16 January 2007 by Manthan Adhyayan Kendra

Privatisation of Water in Mumbai’s K East Ward: Many Questions, Few Answers
As Mumbai prepares for elections to the Municipal Corporation, an issue of heated debate is likely to be the proposed privatisation of water services in one of Mumbai’s largest wards, the K East.

Early last year, forced by intense protests, the Delhi government dropped its plans to hand over management of water in two zones to private companies. The protests, led by Parivartan, had used the Right to Information Act to obtain key documents related to the project. These documents showed that the privatisation, pushed by the World Bank, would involve appointment of four expatriate ‘experts’ in each zone of Delhi’s 21 water zones, with every one of these experts being paid US$ 24,000 (Rs. 11 lakh) per month. This would have meant that 65% of the Delhi Jal Board’s annual operation and maintenance expenditure would have gone to pay for just these 84 experts. And in the process, water tariffs would have shot up almost 10 times.
Apparently blissfully ignorant of these developments in Delhi, the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) has embarked upon an identical scheme, with results likely to be identical.

In January 2006, an agreement was signed with Castalia, French consulting firm based in New Zealand to develop a pilot project for privatisation of the water system in K East ward of Mumbai. This consultancy has been funded through a US$ 692,500 grant by the Private Public Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF), a multi-donor agency run by the World Bank. If this project is successfully implemented, it will be extended to the rest of the city.
In the wake of huge controversies raging in the world and in India on privatisation of water, this project raises a large number of questions.

Is it Privatisation?
Indeed, such has been the experience worldwide of water privatisation that the very word privatisation tends to spark off a reaction. Due to this, the MCGM, has been at pains to deny that this project involves any privatisation. But the reality is completely different.
The terms of reference (TOR) given to the consultant states, in “A Precise Statement of Objectives” that “MCGM envisages to award a "Water Distribution Improvement Contract" to a professional Operator to demonstrate, in a selected pilot area, that it is possible to achieve an improved water supply service....”. Indeed, the very involvement of PPIAF indicates that privatisation is involved, for the PPIAF has been set up with the express aim of “ helping developing countries improve the quality of their infrastructure through private sector involvement.” The answer to the question ’Is it privatisation’ is a loud and unambiguous ’Yes’.
The MCGM is taking recourse to a rather specious argument in this matter. It says that the project does not involve privatisation as the assets would remain under the ownership of MCGM. However, this is not a correct notion – privatisation comes in many forms, including management contracts, service contracts, concession agreements and asset sale is only one form privatisation.

The project in Delhi which had to be dropped under massive protests was in fact exactly the same kind of management contract that Castalia has been asked to develop for K East ward. Indeed, the TOR indicates that privatisation even deeper than management contract may be possible, and even sale of assets cannot be ruled out.
An interesting aside to the whole issue is that so afraid is MCGM of using the word privatisation, that even the name of the project has been changed from the formal “Development of a Pilot Private Sector Participation Model for Drinking Water Distribution in Mumbai” to the more neutral sounding “Water Distribution Improvement Project.”

Will it lead to tariff increase?
The key question associated with privatisation is whether the project would lead to tariff increase. Evidence from all over the world has shown that tariffs shoot up on privatisation. Water tariffs went up 500% in Manila, 300% in Cochabamba, 700% in Guinea on privatisation. Yet, MCGM says that there will be no tariff increase due to this project. If this is so, why doesn’t the TOR indicate this as a criteria to the consultant? Why doesn’t it specifically require the consultant to develop the project while maintaining the existing tariffs? On the contrary, the TOR mentions that this project is a part of larger reforms that include “defining a pricing strategy to recover cost”, which means elimination of all subsidies and an increase in tariffs. It also talks of reducing the distortions due to tariff structures.

All these are clear pointers that tariffs are likely to rise on project implementation.
However, the most important issue in this regards lies elsewhere. One of the main justifications given for privatisation of water systems worldwide is that public operators are highly loss-making entities and have no money for new investments, and private sector will bring in this capital. But the water system of the MCGM in general and K East in particular is making huge profits. Total water revenue in just the K East ward is 661.7 million rupees and operating cost is Rs. 65 million, so the net profit is Rs. 596.7 million or about 60 crore rupees.
The real question is – is privatisation being pushed to corner a part of this huge profit, initially of K East ward, and then of the whole MCGM water system? Otherwise, why the push for privatisation? Apart from lack of resources, the other major justification given for privatisation is that the private sector will be more efficient.

The Myth of Efficiency
However, studies and experiences all over the world show that efficiency of operation is not the monopoly of private sector - there are many examples of efficient public sector water utilities (as also inefficient ones!) while performance of private sector is not always better. The World Bank Economic Review says that studies on water utilities in Asia, “show that efficiency is not significantly different in private companies than in public ones”. A study of 18 Asian cities done for the Asian Development Bank states that “Chengdu, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, and Manila have Private Sector Participation (PSP) in water supply, but the main reasons for PSP (efficiency, investments, and autonomy) have not been manifested to date."

Indeed, the conditions of operation and systems to ensure transparency and accountability are far more important to ensure efficiency than privatisation.
There is there is little reason to believe then, that private operators will necessarily operate the K East water system better than the MCGM. This bolsters the suspicion that the reason for privatisation seems to be the huge profits of the ward.

Broader Questions
The K East project therefore raises a number of broader questions. Why is privatisation being selected a priori as a solution? The MCGM claims to have carried out several studies and explorations to understand the problems of the water sector in Mumbai and its possible solutions. What are the problems identified by these studies? And have they recommended privatisation as a solution? This is not clear at all, and the MCGM has not put these studies in front of the public.
This furthers suspicion that privatisation is being pushed at the behest of other agencies, for corporate profits. It is not widely known that USAID had earlier pushed for a similar privatisation of water in the cities of Sangli-Miraj in Maharashtra, but this was abandoned after strong protests led by the municipal councillors, who too had been kept in the dark! The current attempt in K East is being pushed by the World Bank. It is significant that the contract for developing a water project for K East ward of Mumbai has been signed by Castalia with the World Bank and not the MCGM. Moreover, the TOR requires that all the aspects of the project that will be developed have to be in conformity with the Bank’s procurement guidelines and that “The World Bank clearance … be sought by MCGM on key processing steps..”
This is nothing but an onslaught on autonomy and independence of the MCGM and by reflection of the citizens of Mumbai. Why is the MCGM accepting this? Thus, the questions raised by the project range from economic ones like increased tariffs, possible profiteering by multinational corporations to the more fundamental ones of people’s sovereignty.
It is important all these questions be asked, and be answered before proceeding ahead with this project. What better time to do this then when the city prepares itself for elections?

Shripad Dharmadhikary manthan_b@sancharnet.in
Shripad Dharmadhikary is coordinator of the Manthan Adhyayan Kendra.

BACKGROUND IN WHICH THE WORLD BANK IS GAINING STRENGTH IN INDIA

2007-05-18T13:58:00.000+05:30

Since 1991, the process of neo-liberalism has been greatly accelerated by the new economic policies which have been brought in by the Indian government under the garb of ‘structural adjustments’ ostensibly to rescue itself from financial disaster। These policies have been blueprinted by the World Bank and the IMF in response to the government’s request for badly-needed foreign exchange loans.

Significantly, the earlier project-based role of the World Bank in India has moved to a much more powerful policy-based role। We must now question whether national and state policies are being set in India or in Washington, where the World Bank is headquartered।

Invariably, the worst sufferers of the degradation that is taking place are the most vulnerable section of society – forest dwellers, fisher workers, labour, dalits, farmers, women, children, rural and urban poor।

The WBG is best known for its fi nancing of large infrastructure projects, such as big dams (Sardar Sarovar is the classic example), power plants, highways, etc. These have often resulted in widescale environmental destruction, displacement of large numbers of people and impoverishment of others (through losing access to natural resources,etc.) Since 1991, as a result of India’s foreign exchange crisis, WBG has also given large loans for “structural adjustment” – the name given to a set of neoliberal economic policies which the government has been forced to adopt in return for hard currency liquidity. These policies include privatisation of public services (such as health, education, telephones, water and electric supply); reduction in state subsidies and increased user fees in public services; reoriented economic production towards export; and increased foreign investment and MNC control of the economy. These policies have been promoted as “poverty reduction” or “pro-growth,” but their primary purpose has been to increase the state’s foreign exchange reserves so that hard currency debts (to the World Bank, IMF and private lenders) can be paid off. The degree to which they are responsible for increased economic growth is debatable; but they have clearly been responsible for a growing gap between rich and poor and, in many cases, absolute increases in poverty.

The WBG is problematic not only because of its projects and policies but also its methodology. It operates in greater secrecy than even multinational corporations, as it is not subject to any disclosure laws, and treats its agreements with national governments as state secrets. Because of its control over international capital flows, it is in a position to dictate terms to the government and uses this power to circumvent democratic processes which might seek alternative economic policies. When existing bodies (panchayats, councils, etc.) are not to its liking, the WBG has been known to set up parallel governance structures to implement its projects, thus rendering irrelevant the
nation’s democratic structure. Its loans are sovereign debt, so regardless of the success or failure of its projects, the nation as a whole is obliged to repay them. The WBG determines the loan and attached conditions, but in case of failure, all costs are borne by the people, who are excluded from the decision-making process. Finally, as a treaty organisation, the WBG has claimed immunity from lawsuits.

All of these activities have been strongly criticised at the national and international levels, and every few decades, the WBG has issued a mea culpa and announced a drastic change in direction. The changes are always cosmetic; programs are renamed and reshuffled, but the WBG continues to extend its influence over borrowing countries and reinforce its neoliberal policies.

The World Bank, in its Country Report for India, sets out its plan for the years
2005-2008. It categorically mentions three areas in which it will do substantial lending:
1. infrastructure (road, transport, power, water supply and sanitation, irrigation, and urban development)
2. human development (education, health, social protection)
3. rural livelihoods, with an emphasis on community-driven approaches).
Particular regional focus is on Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, and Uttar Pradesh.

In addition to lending, the World Bank exercises influence through its role as a “knowledge provider.” Knowledge and ideology have always been important components of power. In recent years, with greater quantities of private capital being available to India, the World Bank has attempted to forestall a loss of influence by cornering the marketing on “development knowledge.” In effect, it is creating the intellectual rationale and justification for privatisation and globalisation, even as these policies have come under increased criticism globally.

Vast amounts of “knowledge” – studies, analysis, surveys, and reports – are being produced by International Financial Institutions (IFIs) like the World Bank and highly paid international consultants to push the LPG (‘liberalization, privatization and globalization’) process. In many cases, public policy and development projects are proposed, evaluated, financed, and implemented by these same institutions. It is clear from its World Bank Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) for India for 2005-2008, that the WBG views itself at the center of creating an intellectual base for pushing its formulation of development policies. This CAS will determine the strategy and priorities of the Bank’s lending to India for the next three years. Among the “Strategic Principles” that will “underpin the Bank Group’s work” in India is: That “the Bank will… aim to substantially expand its role as a politically realistic knowledge provider and generator.”

The World Bank has been so successful in spreading its neo-liberal philosophy that the independence of bureaucrats and politicians must now be questioned. The World Bank offers staff exchange programs, training sessions, junkets, seminars, and publications to the very individuals who negotiate with the Bank on behalf of the Indian people. As a result, alternatives to neo-liberalism find no champion within the Bank-government
relationship

Aiding the World Bank and other multilateral agencies in this are a few well-known (and very expensive) international consultants who are paid huge sums (which come to the country as grants or loans) to prepare water sector reform plans, privatisation plans and who even draft legislation to give effect to these. For example, the water sector reforms for Delhi have been designed by PriceWaterhouseCoopers through a project that was funded by the World Bank. The ADB gave a grant that funded a British consultant Halcrow to prepare integrated water management plan for Madhya Pradesh, which led to a World Bank loan for water sector “reforms” - a euphemism for privatisation and commercialisation of natural and common resources.

Introducing the Independent People's Tribunal on the World Bank in India

2007-05-18T12:14:00.000+05:30

For several years, local groups and grassroots organisations have been opposed to the intervention of multilateral agencies in India's economy and development. At various stages, there has been strong project-based opposition to the World Bank in different parts of the country. Consequently, in the last few years the Bank has modified its lending patterns, concentrating more on policy-based lending, as against project-based lending.
The retrogressive impact of the Bank's intervention is being felt throughout the country by almost all marginal and impoverished sections of society. Given the scale of damage, many groups have come together to organise a People's Tribunal on the Impact of the World Bank Group in India.

The purpose behind the Tribunal is to provide a just forum for people who have suffered because of projects and policies funded or promoted by the World Bank Group. The Tribunal is an opportunity to express their grievances and propose alternatives.

The process has been formalised through several consultations with groups, individuals and organizations in various parts of the country. At the National Consultation on Housing and the Urban Poor held in Mumbai in October 2005, where over two hundred groups participated, a call was issued to take the Tribunal forward.

A Tribunal of this size on the World Bank will be the first of its kind in India. The Tribunal endeavours to investigate the effects of the Bank's policies, not only sectorally, but also nationally and institutionally. Some of the key aspects that the Tribunal will look into are the Bank's impact on the sovereignty of the nation, the link with senior bureaucrats and government officials (the revolving door) and fiscal indebtedness.

We seek support from all of you who oppose neo-liberal policies and have great concern for global justice, we hope that you and the networks you are associated with will participate and endorse the Independent People's Tribunal on the Impact of the World Bank Group in India scheduled between 21 to 24 September,2007.

Please share your thoughts with us on any of the following themes or sectors:

Themes:

Private Sector ownership of the bank
World Bank as Knowledge Provider
Governance, Democracy and Sovereignity
Impact of the World Bank on Poverty and Unemployment
Environmental policy and legislation

Sectors:

Agriculture
Education
Health
Food Security
Water
Power
Forests and Fisheries
Judicial Reform
Mining
Toxics and industry
Transport
Urban Renewal/ Urban Poor Power

You can mail your suggestions and opinions on secretariat@worldbanktribunal.org

Visit our website: www.worldbanktribunal.org