by Munetsi Madakufamba
The coming of a new president whose agenda prioritises Africa, the appointment of two vice presidents for the Africa region, and a new thrust towards increased dialogue with all stakeholders, could signal changing face of the World Bank.
James Wolfensohn, who took office as President of the World Bank in June last year, made headlines with his promise to put Africa, a region once regarded as the “graveyard” of the Bank’s policies, at the top of his priority agenda.
As part of a move to revamp the Bank’s operations in the Africa region, two vice presidents, unlike in the past, were recently appointed to take charge of the region and these are Callisto Madavo, a Zimbabwean national, and Jean-Louis Sarbib, a French national born in Africa.
In a statement, Wolfensohn said Madavo, who has 27 years’ experience with the Bank, and Sarbib, who joined the Bank 16 years ago, “will working tandem to design and lead the Region’s work programme”. On country responsibilities, Sarbib is in charge of West, Central and North Africa, while Madavo is responsible for East and Southern Africa, including the 12 Southern African Development Community (SADC) member states.
In what analysts have described as a major shake-up at the world’s largest financial institution, the top echelons of the Bank have undergone an overhaul and this will see each country director being responsible for fewer countries. Directors will be increased from five to fifteen in charge of the more than 30 countries in which the Bank is active.
“The idea is to make the Bank’s field presence more effective by moving the locus of activity to Africa,” says a Bank official.
Eric Chinje, External Affairs Counsellor in the Office of the Vice President, was quoted in Africa Insight, a Harare-based monthly bulletin, as saying the shake-up is to make the Bank’s Africa region operations more responsive to local needs and would herald “very interesting times full of challenges and opportunities”.
The World Bank is also changing the way it works with its partners and is increasingly including the different stakeholder groups in its policy dialogue and decision-making for project lending.
“World Bank projects can be more successful if we consult and work with our partners — NGOs, civil societies, the private sector, governments — and unless the Bank believes that participation is an element of its projects,” says Wolfensohn.
The World Bank News, the institution’s monthly publication, says “empowering stakeholders – especially the poor — beyond information sharing and consultation to decision-making provides project ownership, which ultimately determines the sustainability of a project”.
During his recent visit to Zimbabwe, Madavo said the Bank was now moving away from an era of arrogance when it thought it had all the answers to Africa’s development needs. He said development was about people and the “World Bank’s mission is about improving people’s lives, especially the lives of the poor”.
He acknowledged that a common impression shared by many people was that the Bank “focused narrowly on numbers”, concentrating “more about macroeconomics and adjustment than it does about the poor and the impact that reforms have on people”.
He said while this might have been “true of the Bank of yesterday, it is not true of the Bank of today and will not be true of the Bank of tomorrow”.
Advocacy and lobby groups say participation can achieve results by changing people’s attitudes, values and commitment in managing development. It also builds local capacity for self-organisation and action.
To demonstrate its willingness to enter into dialogue, the World Bank has established NGO liaison positions in all its field missions. As a step in that direction, a department has already been launched to carry out an extensive public relations exercise, sensitising all stakeholders about the Bank’s new initiatives.
Chinje, the Bank’s Africa region information expert who accompanied Madavo during his visit to Zimbabwe, said a programme was underway to engage all the different actors. A recent regional press seminar held in Harare under the auspices of the World Bank and its sister institutions, the International Monetary Fund and International Labour Organisation, was one of a series of such meetings intended to sanitize the Bank’s tainted image.
The World Bank has also made positive moves to step up efforts toward gender equality through its lending and operational assistance. In addition to influencing the advancement of women in its normal country assistance strategies, poverty assessments and lending operations through gender-sensitive planning, the Bank has specific programmes for women.
For instance, an External Gender Consultative Group was formed to promote dialogue on gender issues between the Bank and NGOs, women’s organisations, academic and research institutions. As the World Bank moves toward a “global partnership for development” and opens its doors for increased dialogue, the more pertinent question is not whether the various actors in development should engage, but rather, how might they best engage if African development is going to be a shared responsibility. (SARDC)
