On 21-22 April, the World Bank plans to host a Global Policy Forum in Washington , D.C. , focusing on the "poverty reduction strategy" (PRS) process and World Bank-civil society relations. James Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank, is scheduled to attend for a few hours. It will likely be one of his last interactions with civil society before his ten-year presidency ends five weeks later and he is succeeded by USA Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.
The civil society organizations endorsing this statement believe that this Forum is designed as a public relations exercise by, and for, the World Bank. Conspicuous omissions from the list of those invited, as well as the content of the draft agenda, strongly suggest that the Bank intends to obscure its troubling record of betraying formal participatory processes developed with civil society and to avoid the most fundamental questions about the PRS now required of all low-income Bank borrowers.
The prospect of helping to burnish the image of the World Bank at this moment assumes even greater importance in light of the USA government’s success in installing Wolfowitz to serve as the Bank’s next president. Wolfowitz’s well-known role in planning and promoting the invasion and occupation of Iraq has raised reasonable fears that the World Bank will now be made more explicitly a tool of USA foreign and economic policy. We believe the Forum risks being used as a sign that civil society is open to collaborating with the Bank as the latter enters the Wolfowitz era. Given the outrage that has been expressed by groups around the world in response to this controversial appointment, that outcome would be very unfortunate.
Those of us who were invited to attend the Forum are therefore declining the invitation, and all of us wish to caution our colleagues around the world that this event will likely be dedicated to making the World Bank look good rather than addressing the serious problems in the Bank’s interactions with civil society. Participation in the forum also risks lending legitimacy to the PRS process, when its flaws are so serious that it may not be reformable.
The World Bank controls this Forum, from deciding who is invited to what is on the agenda and how the meeting is conducted. The Bank is covering all the costs, which are undoubtedly substantial.
The absence from the invitation list of virtually all of the people involved in the World Bank’s previous significant engagements with international civil society should concern those considering attending. Several thousand organizations and individuals from the South and North were involved in these exercises from the civil society side, many of them prominent voices in international development. This suggests that the Bank is using its control to prevent the Bank’s recent history from being part of the discussion.
During the last ten years, the World Bank has participated in three lengthy international engagements with civil society on crucial development issues: structural adjustment (Structural Adjustment Participatory Review Initiative), large dams (World Commission on Dams), and oil, mining, and gas exploitation (Extractive Industries Review). In each of these initiatives, the Bank rejected the exercise’s ultimate findings when they turned critical of its operations and demonstrated a degree of bad faith so substantial as to cast suspicion on the Bank’s motivations in any interaction with civil society.
We understand that activists opposing specific World Bank projects or working to influence national economic policy in their respective countries sometimes find it necessary or helpful to meet with the Bank. We would distinguish this conference from such meetings on the grounds that it offers no new information and little realistic chance of influencing policy. The constricted agenda will also limit the possibilities of productive conversation — the first full day, for instance, is devoted to the controversial PRS process, but provides for no discussion of the program’s value or function, or of its single most controversial element, the exclusion of civil society from discussions on macroeconomic policy. In addition, the World Bank has yet to perform a serious review of the poverty impacts of the PRS, which would seem an elementary first step in evaluating its efficacy. Without any evidence that the PRS reduces poverty, the first day’s agenda on improving the PRS bypasses the essential question of whether the PRS is even viable.
What the meeting does offer is the chance for the World Bank to escape accountability for its previous failings while looking out on the gathered crowd and reassuring itself, the media, private funders, parliamentarians, and government officials that it is open and communicating with a broad range of civil society. It offers the Bank the opportunity to reassure itself that cosmetic engagements will suffice to satisfy civil society, and that no further, more substantive engagement is necessary. It also offers one more chance for Wolfensohn to be honored for changing the orientation of the Bank toward civil society, regardless of the fact that, under his presidency, the Bank refused to implement the results of extensive civil society engagements and to change highly detrimental aspects of its operations opposed by citizens around the world.
More ominously, the forum is designed, despite the Bank’s record, to enhance Bank-civil society relations at a time when the Bush Administration appears intent on intensifying the use of the institution to advance USA hegemonic interests through a new management team. Indeed, we can anticipate the promotion by the Wolfowitz Bank of structural adjustment and other free-market macroeconomic policies under the guise of “democratic reforms”, as has been the practice of the Bush Administration.
Hence, we urge all civil society groups to approach with caution any suggestion that a new formal mechanism for ongoing consultations between civil society and the World Bank be created. One such formation, the Joint Facilitation Committee (JFC), is now ending its difficult and largely unproductive two-year lifespan, with many of its members apparently eager to be done with it. The JFC was set up two years ago by the Bank and selected non-governmental organizations for the expressed purpose of enhancing World Bank-civil society relations, while thousands of citizens’ groups were still trying to hold the Bank accountable for not complying with the results of previous engagements.
The JFC was originally slated to organize this Forum, but ultimately decided against it. Its other tangible project, a report on the Bank’s relations with civil society, which is due to be issued at the time of the Forum, has seen its credibility drawn into question because the Bank has provided its funding and because many groups involved in consultative processes, citing the Bank’s ultimate refusal to respect final outcomes, declined to participate.
Any new vehicle resembling the JFC — designed to promote cooperation between the World Bank and civil society without introducing accountability for the Bank’s actions — is likely to prove equally frustrating and controversial, particularly in light of the USA choice to lead the institution over the next five years. We urge our colleagues to turn away from distractions like the JFC, the Global Policy Forum and never-ending and often counter-productive “dialogue” with the Bank and to intensify the dialogue, strategizing and mobilizing within our own community to effect fundamental change in the international financial institutions and their pernicious practices.
Endorsed by:
Focus on the Global South
Shalmali Guttal,
India/Thailand
Jubilee South Africa
Dennis Brutus
South Africa
The Development GAP Steve Hellinger
USA
Lokayan and Intercultural Resource Centre
Smitu Kothari
India
Centre for Civil Society Univ. of KwaZulu-Natal
Patrick Bond
South Africa
50 Years Is Enough Ntwk
Soren Ambrose
USA
Freedom from Debt Coalition & Jubilee South
Lidy Nacpil
Philippines
Bretton Woods Project
Jeff Powell
U.K.
Jorge Carpio
FOCO
Argentina
Comm’ty Dev. Library
Mohiuddin Ahmad
Bangladesh
BanglaPraxis
Zakir Kibria
Bangladesh
LOKOJ Institute
Arup Rahee
Bangladesh
Ashraf-Ul-Alam Tutu
Coastal Development Partnership (CDP)
Bangladesh
Proyecto Gato
Jan Cappelle
Belgium
European Coalition for Just and Effective Drug Policies
Joep Oomen
Belgium
Bart Staes
Member of European Parliament
Belgium
FIAN
Jonas Vanreusel
Belgium
Cândido Grzybowski
Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analyses (IBASE)
Brazil
Rede Brasil
Brazil
Council of Canadians
Maude Barlow
Canada
Halifax Initiative Coalition
Michael Bassett
Canada
Blue Planet Project
Anil Naidoo
Canada
The Development Institute
Atherton Martin
Dominica
Institute for Economic Relocalisation
France
Friends of the Earth- Germany (BUND)
Maja Goepel
Germany
WEED
Daniela Setton
Germany
SAPRIN Hungary
Karoly Lorant
Hungary
Enviro. Support Group
India
The Other Media
Madhumita Dutta
India
Delhi Forum
Souparna Lahiri
India
River Basin Friends
Ravindranath
India
Public Interest Rsch Centre
Kavaljit Singh
India
Rural Volunteers Centre
Arup Kumar Saikia
India
Sanjai Bhatt
India
Yayasan Duta Awam
Muhammad Riza
Indonesia
CRBM
Antonio Tricarico
Italy
ATTAC Japan
Yoko Akimoto
Japan
Equipo Pueblo
Domitille Delaplace
Mexico
Centro de Encuentros y Diálogos Interculturales
Gustavo Esteva
Mexico
Water Energy Users’ Federation-Nepal
Neeru Shrestha
Nepal
South Asian Solidarity for Rivers & Peoples (SARP)
Gopal Siwakoti ‘Chintan’
Nepal
Friends of the Earth Intl.
Longgena Ginting
Netherlands
A SEED Europe- The Disinvestment Campaign
Filka Sekulova
Netherlands
Inst for Global Networking, Information and Studies
John Y. Jones
Norway
Chashma Lok Sath
Mushtaq Gadi
Pakistan
NGO Forum on ADB
Charity P. Cantillo-Dela Torre and Lala Cantillo
Philippines
Freedom from Debt
Ana Maria R. Nemenzo
Philippines
Fnd for Media Alternatives
Alan Alegre
Philippines
Josua Mata
Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL)
Philippines
Forum on African Alternatives
Demba Moussa Dembele
Senegal
Anti-Privatisation Forum
Virginia Setshedi
South Africa
Social Movements Indaba
South Africa
Muslim Youth Movement of South Africa
Na’eem Jeenah
South Africa
Centre for Civil Society
Raj Patel
South Africa
African Women’s Economic Policy Network (AWEPON)
Uganda
Christian Aid
Olivia McDonald
U.K.
World Development Mvmt.
Martin Powell
U.K.
Global Exchange / CodePink
Medea Benjamin
USA
Africa Action
Salih Booker
USA
Center of Concern
Aldo Caliari
USA
TransAfrica Forum
Bill Fletcher, Jr.
USA
Public Citizen
Sara Grusky and Wenonah Hauter
USA
Sunita Dubey
USA
International Rivers Network
Patrick McCully
USA
East Timor Action Network
John M. Miller
USA
The Oakland Institute
Anuradha Mittal
USA
Sisters of the Holy Cross
Ann Oestreich IHM
USA
Center for Economic Justice
Michael Casaus
USA
Peter Rachleff
USA
Medical Mission Sisters- Alliance For Justice
Susan Thompson
USA
Gender Action
Elaine Zuckerman
USA
Public Services International
Cam Duncan
USA
United Church of Christ
Network for Environmental and Economic Responsibility
Rev. Douglas B. Hunt
USA
