7 September 2007
The new approach aims to reinvigorate the World Bank with high quality products and financial services.
After two months in office World Bank President Robert Zoellick has prescribed Wall Street styled products and management techniques to improve the Bank's services.
An email from Zoellick explaining his resoning was reported in a recent Bloomberg article:
"Wall Street has pioneered many of the concepts and tools; the World Bank can help apply them as a package of development solutions for problems and clients that are not piorities for Wall Street. The Bank needs to be faster, better and cheaper without compromising standards. I think we can do that."
His proposal includes loans that protect against the risk of commodity-price collapse or a surge in interest rates, loans in the event of natural disasters, various risk- management tools, and protection against abrupt currency value fluctuation.
Resources
Zoellick Adopts Wall Street Tools to End World Bank Loan Slump by Christopher Swann, Bloomberg News (Bloomberg.com)