Press Release

18th May 2007 - Debt and Development Coalition Ireland

WOLFOWITZ LATE RESIGNATION MERELY SRATCHES SURFACE OF NEED FOR REFORM

Irish anti-poverty campaigners, alongside campaigners from around the world, have said the forthcoming resignation of World Bank president, Paul Wolfowitz, is inadequate and that the Bank is in far deeper need of reform.

Nessa Ní Chasaide, co-ordinator of the campaigning group, Debt and Development Coalition Ireland said, “The World Bank’s arrangement for Mr Wolfowitz’s departure comes too late and merely scratches the surface of the need for fundamental reform of the institution. This crisis has fully exposed the archaic leadership selection arrangement in place at the World Bank which allows the U.S. to handpick the World Bank president. The Irish government should now insist on the instituting of an open and transparent selection process that identifies the new president of the World Bank based on his or her capacity to do the job.”

In a long standing agreement between the U.S. and European governments, the U.S. government selects the leader of the World Bank and European governments in turn select the leader of its partner agency, the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Ms Ní Chasaide continued, “The World Bank urgently requires a leader that can effectively tackle the contradictions at the heart of the World Bank’s approach to working in impoverished countries. The World Bank attaches economic conditions to its loans and aid which undermine the independence of impoverished country governments, and damages their economies. If the World Bank is to be taken seriously as a development institution, it must commit to ending these damaging economic conditions. Ensuring this happens should be a priority for the Irish government if it is to live up to its commitment to fighting global poverty”.

Debt and Development Coalition Ireland is a network of development organisations, missionary congregations and trade unions seeking a just resolution to the international debt crisis and an end to the damaging influence of the World Bank and IMF in impoverished countries.