World Bank denies imposing policies on poor countries

Accra, Sept. 1, GNA - Contrary to the widely spread notion that

the Breton Woods Institutions impose inimical policies on

governments of poor countries as conditions for giving them aid,

the World Bank (WB), on Monday denied ever imposing any

policies on poor countries. Ms. Obiageli Ezekwesili, WB Vice President for Africa, asked

African journalists from about 20 African countries during a video

press conference to turn their attention to the policy choices of their

governments instead of suspecting the WB and other donors of

inimical policy impositions. "It is not our practice at the World Bank to impose policies in

countries and we have never done that," she said. She noted that last year alone the WB gave out 5.4 billion US

dollars as aid to poor countries and had earmarked to deliver 7.2

billions US by the close of this year, adding that none of this money

came with inimical policy impositions. "It has always been the policy of the WB to support the

development programmes of the governments of the countries it

supports to ensure that those governments are in the driving seat as

required by the March 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid

Effectiveness," she said. Ms Ezekwesili said the media in Africa would be failing their

citizens if they continued to feed the public with the wrong

information that donor nations and multilateral organisations were to

blame for the woes of Africa, when in fact the blame should be put

at the doorstep of the policy choices of their governments. "The African media needs to be more analytical in their

approach to monitoring the factors that determine the level of

development in their countries and ask questions like why so much

money has been invested in education and health for instance and

yet those sectors have not been able to deliver the desired results,"

she said. She said the WB only offered assistance in the areas of technical

and human capacity in the proper management and application of

donor funds to ensure that those funds went to reduce poverty,

increase growth, build capacity and ensure speedy achievement of

the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). MORE TMA/REA