After 50 years and $300 billion in World Bank lending, the bank's president would like to hand out less money and be more selective about where it goes. He says to expect "enormous change."
Bank president Lewis Preston says the world's biggest lender will be more selective in its loans and more inclined to get into partnerships with other lenders and non-government organizations."We have to anticipate enormous change in some of the bank's activities," Preston said in an interview on the eve of Tuesday's release of a special 50th anniversary World Bank report.
The bank, which lends money
primarily to developing nations for a host of projects, was born out of an international conference at Bret-ton Woods, N.H., in July 1944.
Critics already were lining up to attack the report and Preston's bank's-eye view of the world.
"Mr. Preston has prescribed for the bank an expanded role as global development strategist," said Doug Hellinger of the Fifty Years Is Enough Campaign. "But any objective look at the havoc that his institution has wrought would lead one to conclude that its operations and power must be significantly cut back."
The campaign accuses the bank of allowing its projects to destroy the environment while "shoving aside the poor."
Preston said, however, that recent bank loans include bigger shares for environmental protection and human resources. He said the bank's main concern is the billion people who live on less than a dollar a day.
Despite Preston's vision of leaner lending, the bank expects to make available an additional $200 billion over the next decade.