Monday, September 18, 2006

Is Wolfowitz trying to make the World Bank look exactly like the Millennium Challenge Corporation? If we have every development organization using corruption levels as a yardstick for who gets support and who doesn't, who will take care of those that are in dire straits, in the spiral which is so often characterized by commodity-based economies, corrupt dictators, and horribly poor citizens? I guess the point is, what is the purpose of the World Bank? Is it part of a cohesive structure of organizations that each have their own role in terms of who helps who? I don't see any kind of coherent division of responsibility, if you ask me....and someone has to muddle through with those countries that still have high rates of corruption, mostly because someone has to try to reach the citizens that suffer, but also because corruption can be combatted from so many different directions, including local economic development, the empowerment of those who are outside of the good old boys network of corrupt dictator X, and a growing number of taxpayers who will start demanding something (schools, policing, etc. ) in return for what they are paying the government. I think they call that bottom-up, huh.....

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