Wolfowitz's pledge to Africa has hollow ring
16 March 2007
NGO reports dramatic drop in World Bank lending for Africa during current fiscal year, predicts decline in quality of loans during final quarter if the Bank attempts to meet its commitments.
World Bank lending to Africa during the 2007 fiscal year is down $1 billion compared to this time last year, according to a Global Accountability Project (GAP) press release. The Bank has committed approximately $1.8 billion during the first three quarters of the current fiscal year, which runs from July 1 to June 30. If it is to match its lending of $4.8 billion to Africa during the previous fiscal year, as Bank President Paul Wolfowitz has pledged to do, the Bank will have to push through another $3 billion in less than four months.
GAP argues that this "could only be accomplished if serious shortcuts are taken" during the safeguard process, which aims to assess and mitigate the negative impacts of Bank projects. This prospect has generated serious concerns, both inside and outside the Bank, that the quality of projects and development effectiveness in the region would suffer as a result.
These revelations come at the onset of negotiations over donor governments' funding commitments to the concessional lending arm of the World Bank, the International Development Association (IDA), for the next three-year cycle beginning in 2008. Wolfowitz, currently at the tail end of his tour of four African countries, has appealed to donors to give generously to support the Bank's work in Africa. Bea Edwards, GAP's International Program Director, suggests that governments may be unwilling to step up their contributions to IDA in light of the Bank's apparent failure to fulfill its commitments to increase assistance to the region.
Wolfowitz is currently in South Africa promoting anti-malaria initiatives, on the last stop of his four-country tour in Africa. He visited Ghana as the country marked its 50th anniversary of independence, Burundi where he spoke about good governance and anti-corruption, and the Democratic Republic of Congo where he promised $1.4 billion in grants over the next three years.
Since assuming the presidency of the Bank in 2005, Wolfowitz has repeatedly cited Africa as one of the Bank's top priorities. In September 2005, the Bank produced its Africa Action Plan, a document which laid out its short- and long-term objectives in the region. The scenarios outlined in the document were largely predicated on a major increase in donor funds for the region, to which G8 countries committed during the Gleneagles summit. However, these funding commitments have, to date, gone unfulfilled. The World Bank has indicated that it will review the implementation of the Africa Action Plan next month at its Spring Meetings in Washington DC.
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