The World Bank is in the news of late. Its president, Paul Wolfowitz (pictured), has been pilloried for making confetti out of the Bank's ethical rulebook, and showering his sweetheart with it. While this is generally unremarkable behaviour in Washington, he has attracted more attention than his peers because of his institution's crusade against corruption, and his saying things like “to make poverty history, we need to make corruption history”.

The real muck, however, doesn’t come from annals of hypocrisy. The bigger story is one that the media are ill-suited to find. It’s about what happens when the limelight is off the Bank, when the Bank goes about its normal business, and enforces policies that impoverish millions, while saying things like “Our Dream is a World Free of Poverty”, (the World Bank’s slogan). And although it’s tempting to blame the fourth estate and their habits of sensationalism, part of the reason there's no scandal is because the World Bank is in the business of hiding the evidence.

Over the past two weeks, for example, at the very same time that Wolfowitz has been pilloried, the Bank has been quietly airing a draft of its World Development Report which, for 2008, covers agriculture. Few outside a small circle of policy junkies got a chance to look at it (and even they were rushed – pointing out what’s good and bad with a dense 500 page report takes more than two weeks). Yet the report will do far deeper, and more lasting, damage than any Beltway bedroom farce.

To see how it all happens, here's a review of some recent salary-related scandals, which rehearse some of the techniques of scandal and subterfuge that are to be found, on a deeper and more covert scale, in the Bank's latest thoughts on agriculture. ... read more »

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Posted on 17 April, 2007 - 18:14