You have heard about our new World Bank president, after the (political)
demise of Mr. Wolfowitz. Here is a view you will not see in the
mainstream press on the larger issues at stake in for his successor.

Mary Anne

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2007 11:47:35 -0700 (PDT)
From: Stephen Bezruchka <sabez@...>
To: International Health Program <ihp@...>
Subject: [Ihp] Whirled Bank: WELL, AT LEAST HE'S NOT A WAR CRIMINAL

The current faux pas at the Bank offers an opportunity to discuss the role this
institution plays in underdeveloping nations, a key role it has had for half a
century. After fifty years is enough, we could have it be in trouble in sixty
years. Who knows? Those who wonder about the name used in the subject line
might go to http://www.whirledbank.org/ where the Whirled Bank Group's dream is
a world full of poverty! (as they say there "The World Bank seeks a new
President to implement failed policies and ensure continued global poverty. No
experience necessary.") STephen
*****

To comment on this article or to see a large set of embedded links, go to
http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/editorsblog/


WELL, AT LEAST HE'S NOT A WAR CRIMINAL*
Robert Weissman
May 30, 2007

Well, at least he's not a war criminal.

George Bush's new selection to head the World Bank, Robert Zoellick has that
over his predecessor, Paul Wolfowitz.

But can't the world demand a slightly higher standard?

The selection process for chief of the World Bank, which claims to be the
world's preeminent anti-poverty institution, is preposterous. By tradition, the
post goes to a U.S. citizen, to be selected by the U.S. President. There is no
pretense of democracy at this international institution. Nor is there any
pretense of demanding relevant development experience. None of the past
presidents of the Bank, including Wolfowitz and Zoellick, has had any
meaningful experience in development policy. There have been longstanding calls
by people who actually care about development, and do have relevant expertise,
to reform the Bank's archaic government structure.

But more important than the Bank's governing process are its policies.

The World Bank's great failings over the last decades are rooted in its
commitment to the market fundamentalism known as "the Washington consensus."
This is a set of maniacal market-oriented policies including: deregulation of
the economy, opening countries up to capital inflows and outflows, removing all
trade barriers and orienting economies to support exports, massive
privatization (including even of such traditional government functions as
customs collection), eliminating subsidies for basic necessities, rolling back
legally guaranteed labor rights, cutting back on government services and
restricting government spending. The Bank has also maintained a penchant for
environmentally and socially destructive mega-development projects: big dams,
oil and gas projects, road-building. The result has been a literal human
disaster: the developing countries that have most closely hued to policies
imposed by the World Bank (and its sister institution, the International
Monetary Fund) have found themselves much poorer, less healthy and less
educated than countries that have resisted Bank recommendations.

In one notable example, the Bank's historic support for user fees for education
and healthcare has denied millions of children the right to schooling, and
deprived millions of people access to healthcare.

The Wolfowitz controversy obscured the bigger issues at the Bank, and the
questions now facing Zoellick:

- Will Zoellick oppose user fees for healthcare?

- Will he support robust public health systems that rely on public providers --
not wishful thinking about HMO-style schemes delivering health care in
developing countries?

- Will he abandon support for water privatization?

- Will he end the Bank's heinous opposition to labor rights in its influential
Doing Business report?

- Will he insist that countries be able to expand healthcare and education
budgets, despite pressure from the International Monetary Fund?

- Will he support the recommendations of Bank-supported expert investigations,
and end support for mega-development projects?

As the U.S. Trade Representative, Robert Zoellick pushed market extremist
policies akin to those of the Bank, in World Trade Organization negotiations,
and especially in bilateral and regional trade agreement negotiations.

His very aggressive agenda as USTR included advocating for increased monopoly
rights for drug companies, eliminating precautionary health measures, removing
protections for small farmers and eliminating industrial tariffs in developing
countries (a key element of the misnamed "Doha Development Round" of World
Trade Organization talks that Zoellick helped kick off).

To be fair to Zoellick, every recent person in his post, Republican or
Democrat, has pushed the same Big Business agenda that he did. And on
pharmaceutical and patent issues -- some of the key considerations at USTR --
he did not do everything Big Pharma wanted, and sometimes really pushed against
the industry's interests (until overridden by the White House.)

On the other hand, the fact that other former U.S. Trade Representatives pushed
a broad Big Business agenda is hardly an argument for why Zoellick should be
rewarded with the World Bank post. It is a better argument for why no former
USTRs should be given the job.

And even though Zoellick had major conflicts with Big Pharma, he did at the end
of the day deliver on almost everything the companies wanted. As my colleague
Asia Russell of the AIDS activist organization Health GAP says, "It's very
difficult to imagine the same Bob Zoellick who carried water for Big Pharma
being the kind of advocate ministers of health need in order to expand their
investments in salaries for doctors and nurses to address 6,000 preventable
AIDS deaths each day in Africa alone."

The same point could be echoed about the rest of Zoellick's performance as
USTR.

Unless Zoellick makes a break from market fundamentalism, expect the World Bank
to continue to generate rather than reduce poverty.

And yes, the world should demand better. For the immediate term, Zoellick
should be pressed to make specific commitments to abandon key components of the
Bank's failed preferred policy set. The longer term agenda must involve
achieving not just better governance at the Bank, but a completely refashioned
orientation.

-------

* Zoellick does not seem to have been an active part of the Cheney-Rumsfeld
cabal that concocted the case for the Iraq war and then carried it out, but he
was (along with Paul Wolfowitz and others) a signer of the 1998 letter from the
Project for a New American Century to Bill Clinton, urging Clinton "to turn
your Administration's attention to implementing a strategy for removing
Saddam's regime from power. This will require a full complement of diplomatic,
political and military efforts."



Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational
Monitor, <http://www.multinationalmonitor.org> and director of
Essential Action <http://www.essentialaction.org>.

(c) Robert Weissman

This article is posted at:
<http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/corp-focus/2007/000258.html>.


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