Sarah Babb
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226033648
- eISBN:
- 9780226033679
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226033679.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Economy
The World Bank and other multilateral development banks (MDBs) carry out their mission to alleviate poverty and promote economic growth based on the advice of professional economists. But as is ...
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The World Bank and other multilateral development banks (MDBs) carry out their mission to alleviate poverty and promote economic growth based on the advice of professional economists. But as is argued in this book, these organizations have also been indelibly shaped by Washington politics, particularly by the legislative branch and its power of the purse. Tracing American influence on MDBs over three decades, this volume assesses increased congressional activism and the perpetual “selling”; of banks to Congress by the executive branch. The author contends that congressional reluctance to fund the MDBs has enhanced the influence of the United States on them by making credible America's threat to abandon the banks if its policy preferences are not followed. At a time when the United States' role in world affairs is being closely scrutinized, this book will be necessary reading for anyone interested in how American politics helps determine the fate of developing countries.Less
The World Bank and other multilateral development banks (MDBs) carry out their mission to alleviate poverty and promote economic growth based on the advice of professional economists. But as is argued in this book, these organizations have also been indelibly shaped by Washington politics, particularly by the legislative branch and its power of the purse. Tracing American influence on MDBs over three decades, this volume assesses increased congressional activism and the perpetual “selling”; of banks to Congress by the executive branch. The author contends that congressional reluctance to fund the MDBs has enhanced the influence of the United States on them by making credible America's threat to abandon the banks if its policy preferences are not followed. At a time when the United States' role in world affairs is being closely scrutinized, this book will be necessary reading for anyone interested in how American politics helps determine the fate of developing countries.
Mark T. Buntaine
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- June 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190467456
- eISBN:
- 9780190467470
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190467456.003.0008
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics, Environmental Politics
Can the allocation of aid be made compatible with achieving good development and environmental outcomes? To this day, environmental and development aid remains largely stuck in a system that focuses ...
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Can the allocation of aid be made compatible with achieving good development and environmental outcomes? To this day, environmental and development aid remains largely stuck in a system that focuses on the approval of projects and the disbursement of funds. This book has shown that it is sometimes possible to channel or overcome these incentives and thereby give aid more effectively. There is not a uniform response to information about results across different types of projects and multilateral development banks. Information about performance must combine with incentives to be selective from donor countries, civil society groups, and recipient countries to change allocation decisions. This chapter discusses the implications of this result for the future of environmental and development assistance, including the creation of the Green Climate Fund and reforms to the allocation procedures at the multilateral development banks. Shifting focus from selectivity practiced at the level of countries to selectivity practiced within the portfolios of countries offers a way to give aid more effectively.Less
Can the allocation of aid be made compatible with achieving good development and environmental outcomes? To this day, environmental and development aid remains largely stuck in a system that focuses on the approval of projects and the disbursement of funds. This book has shown that it is sometimes possible to channel or overcome these incentives and thereby give aid more effectively. There is not a uniform response to information about results across different types of projects and multilateral development banks. Information about performance must combine with incentives to be selective from donor countries, civil society groups, and recipient countries to change allocation decisions. This chapter discusses the implications of this result for the future of environmental and development assistance, including the creation of the Green Climate Fund and reforms to the allocation procedures at the multilateral development banks. Shifting focus from selectivity practiced at the level of countries to selectivity practiced within the portfolios of countries offers a way to give aid more effectively.
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226033648
- eISBN:
- 9780226033679
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226033679.003.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Economy
The World Bank is the leading member of a group of organizations that are officially in the business of realizing the motto “Our dream is a world free of poverty.” The U.S. government is the banks' ...
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The World Bank is the leading member of a group of organizations that are officially in the business of realizing the motto “Our dream is a world free of poverty.” The U.S. government is the banks' most important shareholder and has consistently been at the lead of shareholder initiatives to reform the banks over the past several decades. This book is about the role of Washington politics in forging U.S. policies toward the multilateral development banks (MDBs) over the past several decades and the role of U.S. policies in shaping the banks' ideas and activities. It also argues that the banks' ideas and activities are generated at the intersection of national politics and expert knowledge. Then, it demonstrates that U.S. administrations have learned to use the uncertainties of the congressional approval process to their advantage. Finally, an overview of the chapters included in this book is given.Less
The World Bank is the leading member of a group of organizations that are officially in the business of realizing the motto “Our dream is a world free of poverty.” The U.S. government is the banks' most important shareholder and has consistently been at the lead of shareholder initiatives to reform the banks over the past several decades. This book is about the role of Washington politics in forging U.S. policies toward the multilateral development banks (MDBs) over the past several decades and the role of U.S. policies in shaping the banks' ideas and activities. It also argues that the banks' ideas and activities are generated at the intersection of national politics and expert knowledge. Then, it demonstrates that U.S. administrations have learned to use the uncertainties of the congressional approval process to their advantage. Finally, an overview of the chapters included in this book is given.
Mark T Buntaine
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- June 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190467456
- eISBN:
- 9780190467470
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190467456.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics, Environmental Politics
International organizations do not always live up to the expectations and mandates of their member countries. One of the best examples of this gap is the environmental performance of the multilateral ...
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International organizations do not always live up to the expectations and mandates of their member countries. One of the best examples of this gap is the environmental performance of the multilateral development banks, which are tasked with allocating and managing approximately half of all development assistance worldwide. In the 1980s and 1990s, the multilateral development banks came under severe criticism for financing projects that caused extensive deforestation, polluted large urban areas, and displaced millions of people. In response to these failures, member countries established or strengthened administrative procedures, citizen complaint mechanisms, project evaluation, and strategic planning processes. These reforms were intended to close the gap between the mandates and performance of the multilateral development banks by shaping the way projects are approved. This book provides a systematic examination of whether these efforts have succeeded in aligning allocation decisions with performance. It demonstrates that reforms undertaken to increase the amount of information about performance have caused the multilateral development banks to give aid more effectively by promoting selectivity—moving toward projects with a record of success and away from projects with a record of failure for individual countries. This outcome happens when information about performance makes less successful projects harder to approve or more successful projects easier to approve. This argument is substantiated with an extensive analysis of evaluations across four multilateral development banks and two decades, together with in-depth case studies and dozens of interviews. Member countries have a number of mechanisms that allow them to manage international organizations for results.Less
International organizations do not always live up to the expectations and mandates of their member countries. One of the best examples of this gap is the environmental performance of the multilateral development banks, which are tasked with allocating and managing approximately half of all development assistance worldwide. In the 1980s and 1990s, the multilateral development banks came under severe criticism for financing projects that caused extensive deforestation, polluted large urban areas, and displaced millions of people. In response to these failures, member countries established or strengthened administrative procedures, citizen complaint mechanisms, project evaluation, and strategic planning processes. These reforms were intended to close the gap between the mandates and performance of the multilateral development banks by shaping the way projects are approved. This book provides a systematic examination of whether these efforts have succeeded in aligning allocation decisions with performance. It demonstrates that reforms undertaken to increase the amount of information about performance have caused the multilateral development banks to give aid more effectively by promoting selectivity—moving toward projects with a record of success and away from projects with a record of failure for individual countries. This outcome happens when information about performance makes less successful projects harder to approve or more successful projects easier to approve. This argument is substantiated with an extensive analysis of evaluations across four multilateral development banks and two decades, together with in-depth case studies and dozens of interviews. Member countries have a number of mechanisms that allow them to manage international organizations for results.
Olivier De Schutter
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198810445
- eISBN:
- 9780191847783
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198810445.003.0011
- Subject:
- Law, Human Rights and Immigration, Public International Law
Sovereign debt and the measures imposed on indebted nations, in conjunction with trade liberalisation under the WTO or other similar regimes have forced many countries to forego traditional food ...
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Sovereign debt and the measures imposed on indebted nations, in conjunction with trade liberalisation under the WTO or other similar regimes have forced many countries to forego traditional food security schemes, particularly through state subsidies. As a result, price fluctuations in staple commodities as well as currency fluctuations have forced poorer nations to effectively surrender their food sovereignty in favour of their multilateral trade obligations, investment obligations and debt repayment agreements with both private and public lenders, particularly through the facilitation of multilateral development banks. This chapter traces the roots of food insecurity as a result of sovereign debt-related measures, policies and effects. It does so through particular paradigms, especially through the work of pertinent UN mandates. It examines in what manner the right to food, as enshrined in the ICESCR, may be fulfilled as well as how food security can co-exist alongside trade liberalisation.Less
Sovereign debt and the measures imposed on indebted nations, in conjunction with trade liberalisation under the WTO or other similar regimes have forced many countries to forego traditional food security schemes, particularly through state subsidies. As a result, price fluctuations in staple commodities as well as currency fluctuations have forced poorer nations to effectively surrender their food sovereignty in favour of their multilateral trade obligations, investment obligations and debt repayment agreements with both private and public lenders, particularly through the facilitation of multilateral development banks. This chapter traces the roots of food insecurity as a result of sovereign debt-related measures, policies and effects. It does so through particular paradigms, especially through the work of pertinent UN mandates. It examines in what manner the right to food, as enshrined in the ICESCR, may be fulfilled as well as how food security can co-exist alongside trade liberalisation.
Mark Pieth
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- December 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190458331
- eISBN:
- 9780190458379
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190458331.003.0018
- Subject:
- Law, Private International Law, Public International Law
This chapter discusses administrative sanctions and preventive measures that go beyond criminal law to fight corruption such as states and Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs). They have developed a ...
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This chapter discusses administrative sanctions and preventive measures that go beyond criminal law to fight corruption such as states and Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs). They have developed a set of regulatory sanctions more directly aiming at the prevention of abuses by companies and individuals and protecting the interests of their respective institutions. Domestic procurement rules as well as the regulations developed by MDBs foresee cancellation of loans in the face of concrete misbehavior. Domestic agencies would also be able to stay subsidies or export insurance. Furthermore, domestic agencies and MDBs have introduced detailed sanctions procedures allowing debarment of corporations and individuals from future participation in procurement or from eligibility for export insurance. The debarment procedures established by MDBs may be regarded as a worldwide example of such administrative sanctioning, and one of the largest is the World Bank.Less
This chapter discusses administrative sanctions and preventive measures that go beyond criminal law to fight corruption such as states and Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs). They have developed a set of regulatory sanctions more directly aiming at the prevention of abuses by companies and individuals and protecting the interests of their respective institutions. Domestic procurement rules as well as the regulations developed by MDBs foresee cancellation of loans in the face of concrete misbehavior. Domestic agencies would also be able to stay subsidies or export insurance. Furthermore, domestic agencies and MDBs have introduced detailed sanctions procedures allowing debarment of corporations and individuals from future participation in procurement or from eligibility for export insurance. The debarment procedures established by MDBs may be regarded as a worldwide example of such administrative sanctioning, and one of the largest is the World Bank.
