World Bank role expansion

In recent years the World Bank has expanded its roles. It is best known as a bank – lending money for specific power, transport, health projects – and for its major influence on countries’ economic policies through structural adjustment programmes. Less discussed are the Bank’s growing roles as thinktank on a range of issues, from trade to the environment to post-conflict reconstruction, or its moves to tackle global issues such as climate change, communicable diseases and the digital divide.

The recent leaked memos from Bank staff and from the President admit that the Bank is overstretched and needs to prioritise. This raises the questions of who will judge what the Bank should and should not do and whether the Bank has the skills and legitimacy to play a larger role. Many argue that the Bank has been a major contributor to some of the problems it now claims to want to solve. Others welcome the Bank’s recognition of issues like the environment and governance, but are convinced that it should take the lead from others, not try to dominate all areas.
In her book on the World Bank, Catherine Caufield wrote: “In recent years the Bank has adopted – if only superficially – virtually every suggestion its supporters and critics have offered, with one exception: that the Bank practice self-restraint. It is now committed, at least on paper, to helping the private sector, women and the poor; to working with non-governmental organisations and the people directly affected by its projects; to increasing its lending for education, health, nutrition, and micro-enterprises; to protecting or improving the environment; to reducing military expenditures and corruption; to promoting openness in government, the rule of law and equitable income distribution – and to doing it all ‘sustainably’