World Bank gets more money, developing powers get more say
Apr 25, 2010 9:42 PM
Governments approved nearly 90 billion dollars in extra funds for the World Bank and shifted the balance of voting shares in the institution slightly towards developing countries.
Developing countries were granted a 3-percentage-point shift that gives them just over 47 per cent of the total votes, while advanced economies' share of the total falls to just under 53 per cent.
Emerging and poorer nations have long sought equal say with industrial powers. That will have to wait until at least 2015, when the next review of the voting distribution is due to take place.
The shift reflected new realities in the world economy and was "crucial for the bank's legitimacy," said World Bank President Robert Zoellick, adding that he hoped "developing countries will achieve parity over time."
China was the biggest benefactor, its vote share rising from 2.77 per cent to 4.42 per cent, making the emerging Asian power the third most influential member of the World Bank behind the United States and Japan. Germany, Europe's largest economy, fell to fourth place.
The Development Committee, the steering arm of the World Bank, also agreed to scale up the institution's lending resources by 86.2 billion dollars, replenishing coffers that were sharply depleted by the global financial crisis of the past two years. Of those new funds, 5.1 billion dollars would come in paid-in capital.
Zoellick called the capital increase a "strong vote of confidence" by the world's development and finance ministers, who met in Washington to seal the deal. The extra funds meant the bank no longer faced the prospect of cutting back on its lending this year.
US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the World Bank had made "a strong and compelling case" for the extra funds, after lending more than 100 billion dollars to poor countries since the financial crisis began picking up steam in July 2008.
Geithner also welcomed the voting reforms as a "major step" that "will better reflect the weight of the developing and transition countries in the global economy."
The capital increase comes after the World Bank's sister lender, the International Monetary Fund, last year saw its lending resources tripled by world leaders to 750 billion dollars.
Developing countries by contrast viewed both the funding and voting increase as a first step and said they would continue seeking more of both.
Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega said the extra funds were not enough "to address the huge development challenges the institution has ahead" and said he was disappointed that governments hadn't been more ambitious in reforming the institution's voting.
Ministers had agreed at their last meeting in October to shift voting powers by at least 3 per cent towards developing countries.
Mantega complained that "the 3-per-cent floor practically became a ceiling during our negotiations. "Sudan's national election body said on Sunday that it expected to announce on Monday the results of the presidential poll, which is likely to see President Omar al-Beshirmg re-elected.
Earlier, EU election observers said they were “concerned” about the transparency of the counting process which is being done manually in many parts of the country “without the benefit of the necessary safeguards which were built into the computerised system."
“This would not guarantee accuracy and transparency of the aggregations and would thus undermine the integrity of the whole electoral process,” the observers said.
Apr 25, 2010 9:42 PM
Governments approved nearly 90 billion dollars in extra funds for the World Bank and shifted the balance of voting shares in the institution slightly towards developing countries.
Developing countries were granted a 3-percentage-point shift that gives them just over 47 per cent of the total votes, while advanced economies' share of the total falls to just under 53 per cent.
Emerging and poorer nations have long sought equal say with industrial powers. That will have to wait until at least 2015, when the next review of the voting distribution is due to take place.
The shift reflected new realities in the world economy and was "crucial for the bank's legitimacy," said World Bank President Robert Zoellick, adding that he hoped "developing countries will achieve parity over time."
China was the biggest benefactor, its vote share rising from 2.77 per cent to 4.42 per cent, making the emerging Asian power the third most influential member of the World Bank behind the United States and Japan. Germany, Europe's largest economy, fell to fourth place.
The Development Committee, the steering arm of the World Bank, also agreed to scale up the institution's lending resources by 86.2 billion dollars, replenishing coffers that were sharply depleted by the global financial crisis of the past two years. Of those new funds, 5.1 billion dollars would come in paid-in capital.
Zoellick called the capital increase a "strong vote of confidence" by the world's development and finance ministers, who met in Washington to seal the deal. The extra funds meant the bank no longer faced the prospect of cutting back on its lending this year.
US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the World Bank had made "a strong and compelling case" for the extra funds, after lending more than 100 billion dollars to poor countries since the financial crisis began picking up steam in July 2008.
Geithner also welcomed the voting reforms as a "major step" that "will better reflect the weight of the developing and transition countries in the global economy."
The capital increase comes after the World Bank's sister lender, the International Monetary Fund, last year saw its lending resources tripled by world leaders to 750 billion dollars.
Developing countries by contrast viewed both the funding and voting increase as a first step and said they would continue seeking more of both.
Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega said the extra funds were not enough "to address the huge development challenges the institution has ahead" and said he was disappointed that governments hadn't been more ambitious in reforming the institution's voting.
Ministers had agreed at their last meeting in October to shift voting powers by at least 3 per cent towards developing countries.
Mantega complained that "the 3-per-cent floor practically became a ceiling during our negotiations. "Sudan's national election body said on Sunday that it expected to announce on Monday the results of the presidential poll, which is likely to see President Omar al-Beshirmg re-elected.
Earlier, EU election observers said they were “concerned” about the transparency of the counting process which is being done manually in many parts of the country “without the benefit of the necessary safeguards which were built into the computerised system."
“This would not guarantee accuracy and transparency of the aggregations and would thus undermine the integrity of the whole electoral process,” the observers said.