The World Bank forwards a 70 point agenda to Bangladesh

The World Bank has forwarded 70-point agenda to the government on financial, social, judiciary, election, corruption and governance for implementation in the current 2007-2008 fiscal year.

The future lending from World Bank and International Monetary Fund is linked with the implementation of the key issues of the agenda, officials from the Ministry of Finance said. They also said that many of the points in the agenda had already been incorporated in the budget for 2007-08 fiscal years, while the government is working on a number of other issues.

Some of the issues included in the agenda are related to revenue and monetary matters, seeking measures to maintain macroeconomic stability, and further tightening of monetary policy to combat inflation. The global lender wants commitments to eliminate average nominal protection rates, separate tax policy and planning from tax administration, and combine the two large taxpayers units (tax and value added tax).

Bringing the Agrani Bank to the point of sale, revamping the boards of Agrani, Janata and Sonali banks, amending guidelines for provident fund and insurance fund to energise treasury bond market and reforming the insurance law are among the World Bank’s agenda for financial sector. Its agenda for power and energy sectors include financial restructuring plan for power companies and enabling private investment in power generation and operationalising Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission.

Luckily the World Bank is not planning to have a consultation to assess progress on the use of a non-intrusive and streamlined new conditionality in Bangladesh – they would have a hard time to come up with the right evidence to support the expected trends!

The full text of the news report, written by Nazmul Ahsan and Obaidul Ghani, can be found in the Daily NewAge, July 21, 2007. Dhaka, Bangladesh

Panel release report on World Bank corruption

The panel created to review the work of the World Bank’s anti-corruption unit, the Department of Institutional Integrity (INT – headed by Wolfowitz acolyte Suzanne Rich Folsom), headed by former chairman of the US Federal Reserve Paul Volcker, released its 40-page report today.

The official report comes a few days after US NGO Government Accountability Project (GAP) released a scathing parallel report examining the INT, finding some very questionable practices.

For ongoing discussion of the reports, their fallout and all the gossip see the blog on IFIwatchnet.

Source: IFIWatchnet

UNCTAD and World Bank publish long-awaited papers on odious debt

UNCTAD and The World Bank have both published long-awaited research papers on the issue of odious debt. Both papers have been financed in part by the Government of Norway.

The publication of the papers follows much confusion, especially in relation to the World Bank paper. The Government of Norway had stated over 18 months ago that it had made funds available to both bodies to carry out this work. For some time however the World Bank strenuously denied that this research was underway and Executive Directors to the World Bank – including ironically from the Nordic-Baltic office – also claimed on several occasions that they knew nothing about this work at all. Meanwhile, a letter to UNCTAD offering to review the Terms of Reference for the study went unanswered. Despite clear civil society interest in these two papers, it is not clear how the researchers were finally selected or who defined any terms of reference for the two papers. A letter to the Norwegian Government expressing dissatisfaction with the secrecy surrounding the process also did not yield a satisfactory response. The Government of Norway merely pointed to the sensitivity of the topic. In this context, we look forward to their detailed comments to the two papers over the next couple of months.

In relation to content, both papers begin by reviewing a number of instances over the past century where the concept of odious debt has been invoked to declare a sovereign debt null and void or to support the repudiation of sovereign debt.

The main message to emerge from the World Bank discussion paper is that international law does not generally provide for the repudiation of debts on the grounds of their being odious, but this should not deter lenders and sovereign borrowers from acting in a variety of ways to ensure that loans are used for the benefit of the borrowing states and not to subjugate their
populations or enrich the corrupt.

The UNCTAD paper is less dismissive of the doctrine of odious debt. Indeed it suggests that – although complex – there are often strong grounds to make the case that a debt is odious. Where such cases have been rejected, it is because the individual sovereign debt in question has not been considered odious rather than because international law does not recognise the concept of odious debt as such. The paper concludes however that there is no obvious legal forum for the adjudication or settlement of claims of odiousness but that such claims might appropriately be raised in bilateral or multilateral negotiations on debt relief, or they could be adjudicated in the context of arbitration or domestic litigation.

Both UNCTAD and the World Bank are inviting feedback on the papers. These should be sent to discussion@unctad.org and to vnehru@worldbank.org.

Reports:

UNCTAD: The Concept of Odious Debt in Public International Law

World Bank: “Odious Debt: Some Considerations”