Ngonzi, Kim and Campo; all at the mercy of Corporate Capital

I had no intention of blogging about the World Bank, but one of my friends asked me for an opinion so…. 

I must start by saying that the appointment of Dr. Kim over Ngonzi to head the World Bank should not come as a surprise to anyone that has followed the bank’s selection process over the years. 1600 Penn Ave. nominates an American and that choice is final. Although I must say, Obama has disappointed many with his choice, especially after he promised a transparent selection process - damn politicians!  That however should not take away from the fact that Dr. Kim is a highly reputable health professional who’ve spent most of his career solving problems with a cheaper and more efficient process than most politicians and development experts .   If anything, we should hope that Obama’s choice in Dr. Kim will work for Africa this time around.  I hope Dr. Kim can help the bank effectively focus on health care delivery (that will work for Africans) with the same determination they adopted with their unpopular development initiatives which favor large corporate capital at the expense of poor African farmers. 

However, given the unchangeable nature of the bank's traditions and practices, I personally do not care who becomes head.  We have seen respected economic experts take the helm at the bank promising significant development in Africa but yet underdevelopment and poverty in the continent still persists.  In fact, one can even say that under the guidance of these so called qualified experts, the bank has pushed the African continent deeper into crisis with the conditionalities and adjustment programs attached to their “solution for a better Africa.” 

For Africans feeling the sense of injustice about Dr. Kims appointment, the experience from Kofi Annan, Boutros-Ghali before him and now Fatou Bensouda should teach us a simple lesson that the nationality of the head of these international organizations does not really have much of an impact in the call for the reform of the fundamental policies that will favor the poor African over corporate capital.   There is a clear difference between symbolic, cosmetic and real change and the appointment of someone from the third world as the head of the bank only represents a cosmetic change that will not change the fundamental developmental ideology and operation of the bank.   As Africans, we must also remember that Ngonzi has been a managing Director at the bank and has helped pushed the bank's trade liberalization policies that have had a big hand in food insecurity in Africa by putting the future of poor Africans in the hands of speculators in the futures commodities market.  The deleterious results of the bank's actions in Africa under the leadership of Ngonzi and few others are still evident as their policies have forced Africans to abandoned agriculture that worked for the bretton woods prescribed cash crop solution which has increased dependency on aid base development that has driven Africa to the edge.  

Given Africa's relationship with the twin bretton woods institutions for over 50 years, we must now accept that these 2 institutions simply exist to do the bidding of the great powers.  Ngonzi would have spoken for the people of Africa, but she would have still been at the service of the system and tradition already in place at the bank.  Although some will say a change of guard is a start, I simply disagree as Africa is yet to start pulling its own weight (in the form of funds) within the bank that will force the bank to seek reforms that will favor our people over large multi-national capital.    

Solution:  A complete overhaul and restructuring of the IMF and the World Bank will have to be effected for the Bretton Woods institutions to start reflecting the will of the African populace.  If the WB/IMF really want to help Africa, they should abandon most of their policies that open up African markets to exploitation and also forget their current mission of preserving the current global economic and political system that only favors the G8/G20.   Either that or Africans leaders must now stop disappointing us and start putting all their energies in developing institutions that will allow us to progress enough to see the Bretton woods institutions as second class developmental agencies.