[stop-imf] Author of World Bank report resigns in protest of muzzling

[Robert Weissman]

>From the Bretton Woods Project - London, UK

Dear Friends,=09

Attached and below is our statement on the resignation of Ravi Kanbur as
lead author of the World Bank's forthcoming World Development Report on
Poverty. This is apparently over a policy row on globalisation issues.=20

I hope you will be able inform others about this, ie NGOs, researchers and
press.=20

Please let us know if you find out other information.=20

Alex=20


14 June 2000

Contact: Alex Wilks: 0207 523 2170 (daytime), or 0207 284 1886 (evening)

Ravi Kanbur's resignation as World Development Report lead author:
a serious blow for the World Bank and for sensible discussion of
globalisation

Ravi Kanbur, lead author of the World Bank's forthcoming World Development
Report (WDR) on Poverty, has tendered his resignation. He has sent a letter
to senior Bank management expressing his concerns about what he saw as
unreasonable pressure to tone down WDR sections on globalisation. Reliable
Washington sources indicate that US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has
got directly involved in re-writing the globalisation sections of this
report, which is likely to be extremely prominent in future discussions of
international issues and in guiding aid interventions.=20

Ravi Kanbur, T.H. Lee Professor of World Affairs, Cornell University, was
appointed by the Bank in Spring 1998 to lead the team writing this report.
His writings and the genuine efforts he made to commission research from
and consult a range of groups across the world have won him much respect.
Many people had hoped the World Bank's report for this year might break new
ground compared to its predecessors and open up debates on issues such as
free trade and political disempowerment. Kanbur was at pains to stress that
policy-makers must examine the detailed, disaggregated impacts on different
population groups, rather than relying on general formulae. The
organisations which have fed into this report are very concerned to know
what will happen to it now that Kanbur has been forced out.=20

Alex Wilks, Coordinator of the Bretton Woods Project, commented:=20
"The resignation of the lead author of this flagship Bank report confirms
our view that the World Bank is unable to accept dissenting views, whether
from insiders or outsiders. Coming soon after Joe Stiglitz departed as
Chief Economist this is a major blow for an institution trying to position
itself as a 'knowledge Bank' and a 'listening Bank'"
"It raises questions of who really calls the shots at the Bank and what
evidence or opinions about the impacts of globalisation they are trying to
suppress".

At Ravi Kanbur's request, the Bretton Woods Project and New Policy Institue
ran an electronic conference to discuss the WDR first draft which (a first
for the Bank) was disseminated in January this year. The conference
attracted 1,523 people from over 80 countries. Many respondents felt that
the draft WDR 2000/01 reflected real progress compared to its predecessors,
with a increased examination of non-income dimensions of poverty and
recognition of insecurity, voicelessness and powerlessness.  It moved
beyond national average figures on poverty incidence to examine the many
factors which influence poverty outcomes for vulnerable population groups.
A number of contributors, however, urged the WDR to be bolder in its
conclusions, particularly on the political obstacles to implementing
pro-poor policies, and the need for a rights-based approach to press
Northern countries to do more on trade and environmental degradation. In
his 19 May response to the conference, Kanbur said that his team was
looking to strengthen their lines on some of these issues, in particular
to: "revise the concluding recommendations to bring global actions to
center stage".=20



Background notes: see overBACKGROUND NOTES

Kanbur statement on process integrity
In a letter to the Bretton Woods Project of 17 July 1998 Kanbur stated:=20
"since you asked for my views, I wanted to let you know my own personal
philosophy and perspective as we go into the processes leading up to the
Poverty WDR. First and foremost, I want to stress that I would stand behind
any Report that I put my name to, and would not submit to any substantive
editing I did not agree with".

UK government funding, research input
Many UK organisations were involved in submitting research or engaging in
consultations on the WDR. The UK government gave the Bank an additional
grant of =A3750,000, aiming to help the report team "give a voice to poor
people in the preparation of the World Bank's millenium World Development
Report" [DFID News Release, 4 December, 1998]. A number of UK
organisations, including Oxfam, IDS, ODI, Christian Aid and CREDIT
contributed research to the report. The WDR's findings are likely to be
influential on the drafting of the UK government's white paper on
globalisation, due this November.=20

About the WDR
The Bank produces World Development Reports every year. The ones at the
start of each decade, however, are the most influential as they take an
overall look at the 1990 report was very influential in the Bank and for
many aid agencies and researchers across the world.=20
This WDR is due to be signed off by the Bank Board this month, then printed
in time to be launched in mid-September, just before the World Bank/IMF
annual meetings in Prague.=20

WDR's are officially not documents of the Executive Board of the World
Bank, and is thus not an official  policy document, it is a document
prepared by the Chief Economist's staff,  and therefore ultimately
represents the views of staff and management. At the same time, the process
of preparation of WDRs to become more consultative, to include views of
outsiders.=20

"There is no doubt that wide ranging consultation does indeed influence the
team's thinking and perspective as alternative views are encountered and
debated." Newsletter Update on WDR 2000/01, No. 1, January 1999
[http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/wdrpoverty/newsl/newsl]

Bank President James Wolfensohn, stated in a letter to the Bretton Woods
Project of 26 August, 1998 that "I view WDRs as being one of the Bank's
critical instruments for dialogue with the development community at large.
I have also emphasized that we should not just be reciting generic answers
but raising fundamental questions to which there are no easy answers".=20

About Ravi Kanbur
Ravi Kanbur, the T.H. Lee Professor of World Affairs at Cornell University
is on leave of absence from his post for the academic year 1999-2000 to
lead this report. A UK citizen, Kanbur was on the staff of the World Bank
from 1989 to 1997, serving successively as Adviser, Senior Adviser,
Resident Representative in Ghana, Chief Economist for Africa, and Principal
Adviser to the Chief Economist.

About the Bretton Woods Project
The Bretton Woods Project works with UK-based NGOs to monitor the World
Bank and IMF. Groups in the network which established the Project include
Christian Aid, WWF, New Economics Foundation and World Development
Movement. See: www.brettonwoodsproject.org

Resources available:=20
For more information on the e-conference, including a full archive of
contributions, see:=20
www.worldbank.org/devforum/forum_poverty.html

For more general background on the WDR, see:
www.worldbank.org/poverty/wdrpoverty.

The letters and documents mentioned in this statement are all also
available from the Bretton Woods Project by fax or post.=20