Institusi in IR

Institutions in international relations

The United Nations Secretariat Building at the United Nations headquarters in New York City.

International institutions form a vital part of contemporary International Relations. Much interaction at the system level is governed by them, and they outlaw some traditional institutions and practices of International Relations, such as the use of war (except in self-defence).
As humanity enters the Planetary phase of civilization, some scientists and political theorists^[who?] see a global hierarchy of institutions replacing the existing system of sovereign nation-states as the primary political community. They argue that nations are an imagined community that cannot resolve such modern challenges as the “Dogville” effect (strangers in a homogeneous community), the legal and political status of stateless people and refugees, and the need to address worldwide concerns like climate change and pandemics.
Futurist Paul Raskin has hypothesized that a new, more legitimate form of global politics could be based on “constrained pluralism.” This principle guides the formation of institutions based on three characteristics: irreducibility, where some issues must be adjudicated at the global level; subsidiarity, which limits the scope of global authority to truly global issues while smaller-scope issues are regulated at lower levels; and heterogeneity, which allows for diverse forms of local and regional institutions as long as they meet global obligations.

See also: International organization

United Nations

Main article: United Nations

The United Nations (UN) is an international organization that describes itself as a "global association of governments facilitating co-operation in international law, international security, economic development, and social equity"; It is the most prominent international institution. Many of the legal institutions follow the same organizational structure as the UN.

Economic institutions

Asian Development Bank

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Asian Development Bank
Motto	Fighting poverty in Asia and the Pacific
Formation	22 August 1966
Type	Regional organization
Legal status	Treaty
Purpose/focus	Crediting
Headquarters	Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila, Philippines
Region served	Asia-Pacific
Membership	67 countries
President	Haruhiko Kuroda
Main organ	Board of Directors[1]
Staff	2,500+
Website	http://www.adb.org

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is a regional development bank established on 22 August 1966 to facilitate economic development of countries in Asia.^[2] The bank admits the members of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP, formerly known as the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East) and non-regional developed countries.^[2] From 31 members at its establishment, ADB now has 67 members - of which 48 are from within Asia and the Pacific and 19 outside. ADB was modeled closely on the World Bank, and has a similar weighted voting system where votes are distributed in proportion with member's capital subscriptions. At present, both the United States and Japan hold 552,210 shares, the largest proportion of shares at 12.756 percent each.^[3]

Organization

The highest policy-making body of the bank is the Board of Governors composed of one representative from each member state. The Board of Governors, in turn, elect among themselves the 12 members of the Board of Directors and their deputy. Eight of the 12 members come from regional (Asia-Pacific) members while the others come from non-regional members.
The Board of Governors also elect the bank's President who is the chairperson of the Board of Directors and manages ADB. The president has a term of office lasting five years, and may be reelected. Traditionally, and because Japan is one of the largest shareholders of the bank, the President has always been Japanese. The current President is Haruhiko Kuroda, who succeeded Tadao Chino in 2005.
The headquarters of the bank is at 6 ADB Avenue, Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila, Philippines, and it has representative offices around the world. The bank employs approximately 2,400 people, coming from 55 of its 67 member countries, and with more than half of the staff being Filipino.

History

1962-1972

ADB was originally conceived by some influential Japanese who formulated a "private plan" for a regional development bank in 1962, which was later endorsed by the government. The Japanese felt that its interest in Asia was not served by the World Bank and wanted to establish a bank in which Japan was institutionally advantaged. Once the ADB was founded in 1966, Japan took a prominent position in the bank; it received the presidency and some other crucial "reserve positions" such as the director of the administration department. By the end of 1972, Japan contributed $173.7 million (22.6 percent of the total) to the ordinary capital resources and $122.6 million (59.6 percent of the total) to the special funds. In contrast, the United States contributed only $1.25 million for the special fund.^[2]
The ADB served Japan's economic interests because its loans went largely to Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea and the Philippines, the countries with which Japan had crucial trading ties; these nations accounted for 78.48 percent of the total ADB loans in 1967-72. Moreover, Japan received tangible benefits, 41.67 percent of the total procurements in 1967-76. Japan tied its special funds contributions to its preferred sectors and regions and procurements of its goods and services, as reflected in its $100 million donation for the Agricultural Special Fund in April 1968.^[2]
Takeshi Watanabe served as the first ADB president from 1966 to 1972.

1972-1986

Japan's share of cumulative contributions increased from 30.4 percent in 1972 to 35.5 percent in 1981 and 41.9 percent in 1986. In addition, Japan was a crucial source of ADB borrowing, 29.4 percent (out of $6,729.1 million) in 1973-86, compared to 45.1 percent from Europe and 12.9 percent from the United States. Japanese presidents Inoue Shiro (1972–76) and Yoshida Taroichi (1976–81) took the spotlight. Fujioka Masao, the fourth president (1981–90), adopted an assertive leadership style. He announced an ambitious plan to expand the ADB into a high-impact development agency. His plan and banking philosophy led to increasing friction with the U.S. directors, with open criticism from the Americans at the 1985 annual meeting.^[2]
During this period there was a strong parallel institutional tie between the ADB and the Japanese Ministry of Finance, particularly the International Finance Bureau (IFB).

Since 1986

Its share of cumulative contributions increased from 41.9 percent in 1986 to 50.0 per- cent in 1993. In addition, Japan has been a crucial lender to the ADB, 30.4 percent of the total in 1987-93, compared to 39.8 percent from Europe and 11.7 percent from the United States. However, different from the previous period, Japan has become more assertive since the mid 1980s. Japan's plan was to use the ADB as a conduit for recycling its huge surplus capital and a "catalyst" for attracting private Japanese capital to the region. After the 1985 Plaza Accord, Japanese manufacturers were pushed by high yen to move to Southeast Asia. The ADB played a role in channeling Japanese private capital to Asia by improving local infrastructure.^[2] The ADB also committed itself to increasing loans for social issues such as education, health and population, urban development and environment, to 40 percent of its total loans from around 30 percent at the time.^[2]

ADB Lending

The ADB offers "hard" loans from ordinary capital resources (OCR) on commercial terms, and the Asian Development Fund (ADF) affiliated with the ADB extends "soft" loans from special fund resources with concessional conditions. For OCR, members subscribe capital, including paid-in and callable elements, a 50 percent paid-in ratio for the initial subscription, 5 percent for the Third General Capital Increase (GCI) in 1983 and 2 percent for the Fourth General Capital Increase in 1994. The ADB borrows from international capital markets with its capital as guarantee.^[2]
In 2009, ADB obtained member-contributions for its Fifth General Capital Increase of 200%, in response to a call by G20 leaders to increase resources of multilateral development banks so as to support growth in developing countries amid the global financial crisis. For 2010 and 2011, a 200% GCI allows lending of $12.5-13.0 billion in 2010 and about $11.0 billion in 2011.^[4] With this increase, the bank's capital base has tripled from $55 billion to $165 billion.^[5]

Notable ADB projects and Technical Assistance

This Source may contain improper references to self-published sources. Please help improve it by removing references to unreliable sources where they are used inappropriately. (September 2010)

• Afghan Diaspora Project
• Funding Utah State University led projects to bring labor skills in Thailand^{[citation needed]}
• Earthquake and Tsunami Emergency Support Project in Indonesia
• Greater Mekong Subregional Program^[6]
• ROC Ping Hu Offshore Oil and Gas Development
• Strategic Private Sector Partnerships for Urban Poverty Reduction in the Philippines
• Trans-Afghanistan Gas Pipeline Feasibility Assessment
• Loan of $1.2 billion to bail it out of an impending economic crisis in Pakistan and on going funding for the countries growing energy needs, specifically Hydro-power projects^[7]
• Micro finance support for private enterprises, in conjunction with governments, including Pakistan and India.
• The Yichang-Wanzhou Railway project in the mountainous area of western Hubei Province and north-eastern Chongqing Municipality, China. (A US $500,000 loan, approved in 2003.)^[8]

Effectiveness

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Given ADB's annual lending volume, the return on investment in lesson learning for operational and developmental impact is likely to be high and maximizing it is a legitimate concern. All projects funded by ADB are evaluated to find out what results are being achieved, what improvements should be considered, and what is being learned.
There are two types of evaluation: independent and self-evaluation. Self-evaluation is conducted by the units responsible for designing and implementing country strategies, programs, projects, or technical assistance activities. It comprises several instruments, including project/program performance reports, midterm review reports, technical assistance or project/program completion reports, and country portfolio reviews. All projects are self-evaluated by the relevant units in a project completion report. ADB’s project completion reports are publicly disclosed on ADB’s Internet site. Client governments are also required to prepare their own project completion reports.
Independent evaluation is a foundation block of organizational learning: it is essential to transfer increased amounts of relevant and high-quality knowledge from experience into the hands of policy makers, designers, and implementers. ADB’s Operations Evaluation Department (OED) conducts systematic and impartial assessment of policies, strategies, country programs, and projects, including their design, implementation, results, and associated business processes to determine their relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability following prescribed methods and guidelines,.^[9] It also validates self-evaluations. By this process of evaluation, ADB demonstrates three elements of good governance: (i) accountability, by assessing the effectiveness of ADB's operations; (ii) transparency, by independently reviewing operations and publicly reporting findings and recommendations; and (iii) improved performance, by helping ADB and its clients learn from past experience to enhance ongoing and future operations.
Operations evaluation has changed from the beginnings of evaluation in ADB in 1978. Initially, the focus was on assessing after completion the extent to which projects had achieved their expected economic and social benefits. Operations evaluation now shapes decision making throughout the project cycle and in ADB as a whole. Since the establishment of its independence in 2004, OED reports directly to ADB’s Board of Directors through the Board's Development Effectiveness Committee. Behavioral autonomy, avoidance of conflicts of interest, insulation from external influence, and organizational independence have made evaluation a dedicated tool—governed by the principles of usefulness, credibility, transparency, and independence—for greater accountability and making development assistance work better. Independent Evaluation at the Asian Development Bank presents a perspective of evaluation in ADB from the beginnings and looks to a future in which knowledge management plays an increasingly important role.^[10]
In recent years, there has been a major shift in the nature of OED’s work program from a dominance of evaluations of individual projects to one focusing on broader and more strategic studies. To select priority topics for evaluation studies, OED seeks input from the Development Effectiveness Committee, ADB Management, and the heads of ADB departments and offices. The current thrusts are to: (i) improve the quality of evaluations by using more robust methodologies; (iii) give priority to country/sector assistance program evaluations; (iv) increase the number of joint evaluations; (v) validate self-evaluations to shorten the learning cycle; (vi) conduct more rigorous impact evaluations; (vii) develop evaluation capacity, both in ADB and in DMCs; (viii) promote portfolio performance; (ix) evaluate business processes; and (x) disseminate findings and recommendations and ensure their use. OED's work program has also been reinterpreted to emphasize organizational learning in a more clearly defined results architecture and results framework. It entails (i) conducting and disseminating strategic evaluations (in consultation with stakeholders),^[11] (ii) harmonizing performance indicators and evaluation methodologies,^[12] and (iii) developing capacity in evaluation and evaluative thinking.^[13] All evaluation studies are publicly disclosed on OED's website (some evaluations of private sector operations are redacted to protect commercially confidential information).^[14] OED's evaluation resources are displayed by resource type, topic, region and country, and date.^[15] Learnings are also gathered in an online Evaluation Information System offering a database of lessons, recommendations, and ADB Management responses to these.^[16] Details of ongoing evaluations and updates on their progress are made public too.^[17]
Beginning 2006, acting within the knowledge management framework of ADB, OED has applied knowledge management to lesson learning, using knowledge performance metrics.^[18] Learning Lessons in ADB sets the strategic framework for knowledge management in operations evaluation.^[19] Improvements have been made that hold promise not only in OED but, more importantly, vis-à-vis its interfaces with other departments and offices in ADB, developing member countries, and the international evaluation community. In the medium term, OED will continue to improve the organizational culture, management system, business processes, information technology solutions, community of practice, and external relations and networking for lesson learning. Among the new knowledge products and services developed, Learning Curves are handy, two-paged quick references designed to feed findings and recommendations from evaluation to a broader range of clients^[20] Evaluation News report on events in monitoring and evaluation.^[21] Evaluation Presentations offer short photographic or Powerpoint displays on evaluation topics.^[22] Auditing the Lessons Architecture highlights the contribution that knowledge audits can make to organizational learning and organizational health.^[23]
Of the 1,106 ADB-funded projects evaluated and rated so far (as of December 2007), 65% were assessed as being successful, 27% partly successful and 8% as unsuccessful.

Criticism

Since the ADB's early days, critics have charged that the two major donors, Japan and the United States, have had extensive influence over lending, policy and staffing decisions.^[24]
Oxfam Australia has criticized the Asian Development Bank of insensitivity to local communities. "Operating at a global and international level, these banks can undermine people's human rights through projects that have detrimental outcomes for poor and marginalized communities."^[25] The bank also received criticism from the United Nations Environmental Program, stating in a report that "much of the growth has bypassed more than 70 percent of its rural population, many of whom are directly dependent on natural resources for livelihoods and incomes."^[26]
There had been criticism that ADB's large scale projects cause social and environmental damage due to lack of oversight. One of the most controversial ADB-related projects is Thailand's Mae Moh coal-fired power station. Environmental and human rights activists say ADB's environmental safeguards policy as well as policies for indigenous peoples and involuntary resettlement, while usually up to international standards on paper, are often ignored in practice, are too vague or weak to be affective, or are simply not enforced by bank officials.^[27][28]
The bank has been criticized over its role and relevance in the food crisis.The ADB has been accused by civil society of ignoring warnings leading up the crisis and also contributing to it by pushing loan conditions that many say unfairly pressure governments to deregulate and privatize agriculture—leading to problems such as the rice supply shortage in Southeast Asia.^[29]
The bank has also been criticized by Vietnam War veterans for funding projects in Laos, because of the United States' 15% stake in the bank, underwritten by taxes.^[30] Laos became a communist country after the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam and the Laotian Civil War was won by the Pathet Lao, which is widely understood to have been supported by the North Vietnamese Army.
In 2009, the bank endorsed a 2.9-billion-dollar funding strategy for proposed projects in India. The projects in this strategy were only indicative and still needed to be further approved by the bank's Board of Directors; however, PRC Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang claimed, "The Asian Development Bank, regardless of the major concerns of China, approved the India Country Partnership strategy which involves the territorial dispute between China and India. China expresses its strong dissatisfaction over this... The bank's move not only seriously tarnishes its own name, but also undermines the interests of its members."^[31]

Members

Asian Development Bank - Developing Member Countries (DMC) graduation stages^[32]

Outside regions

Asia-Pacific region developed members

DMC graduated from assistance, Group- Ordinary Capital Resources (OCR) financing, Group-C

OCR and ADF blended financing, Group-B

Asian Development Fund (ADF) financing, Group-A

ADB has 67 members (as of 2 February 2007).^[33] Names are as recognized by ADB.
The year after a member's name indicates the year of membership. The largest share holders of the ADB are Japan and USA, each holding 15.57% of the shares.^[34] At the time a country ceases to be a member, the Bank shall arrange for the repurchase of such country's shares by the Bank as a part of the settlement of accounts with such country in accordance with the provisions of paragraphs 3 and 4 of this Article.^[35]
Republic of China (Taiwan) initially joined as "China" as a founding member representing the whole of China. However, its share of Bank capital was based on the size of Taiwan's capital, unlike the World Bank and IMF where the government in Taiwan had had a share representing the whole of China prior to the People's Republic of China joining and taking the Republic of China's seat. In 1986, a compromise was effected when the People's Republic of China joined the institution. The ROC was allowed to retain its membership, but under the name of Taipei, China — a name it protests. Uniquely, this allows both sides of the Taiwan Straits to be represented at the institution.

Asian and Pacific region: 48 members
Afghanistan (1966) Australia (1966) Cambodia (1966) India (1966) Indonesia (1966) Japan (1966 Korea, Republic of (1966) Lao People's Democratic Republic (1966) Malaysia (1966) Nepal (1966) New Zealand (1966) Pakistan (1966) Philippines (1966) Samoa (1966) Singapore (1966) Sri Lanka (1966)	Taipei, Republic of China[36] (1966) Thailand (1966) Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of (1966) Hong Kong, China[37] (1969) Fiji (1970) Papua New Guinea (1971) Tonga (1972) Bangladesh (1973) Myanmar (1973) Solomon Islands (1973) Kiribati (1974) Cook Islands (1976) Maldives (1978) Vanuatu (1981) Bhutan (1982) China, People's Republic of (1986)	Marshall Islands (1990) Micronesia, Federated States of (1990) Mongolia (1991) Nauru (1991) Tuvalu (1993 Kazakhstan (1994) Kyrgyz Republic (1994) Uzbekistan (1995) Tajikistan (1998) Azerbaijan (1999) Turkmenistan (2000) Timor-Leste (2002) Palau (2003) Armenia (2005) Brunei Darussalam (2006) Georgia (2007)
Other regions: 19 members
Austria (1966) Belgium (1966) Canada (1966) Denmark (1966) Finland (1966) Germany[38] (1966) Italy (1966)	Netherlands (1966) Norway (1966) Sweden (1966) United Kingdom (1966) United States (1966) Switzerland (1967)	France (1970) Spain (1986) Turkey (1991) Portugal (2002) Luxembourg (2003)  Ireland (2006)

United Nations Development Business

The United Nations launched Development Business in 1978 with the support of the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, and many other major development banks from around the world. Today, Development Business is the primary publication for all major multilateral development banks, United Nations agencies, and several national governments, many of whom have made the publication of their tenders and contracts in Development Business a mandatory requirement.^[39]

African Development Bank

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African Development Bank
Formation	August 4, 1963
Type	International organization
Legal status	Treaty
Purpose/focus	Regional development
Membership	78 countries
President	Donald Kaberuka
Main organ	Board of Executive Directors
Website	http://www.afdb.org/

The African Development Bank Group is a development bank established in 1964 with the intention of promoting economic and social development in Africa. The Group comprises the African Development Bank (AfDB), the African Development Fund (ADF), and the Nigeria Trust Fund (NTF). AfDB provides loans and grants to African governments and private companies investing in the regional member countries (RMC) in Africa. It is owned and funded by member governments, and has a public-interest mandate to reduce poverty and promote sustainable development.

History

Following the end of colonial period in Africa, growing desire for more unity within the continent led to the establishment of two draft charters, one for the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity (established in 1963, later replaced by the African Union), and for a regional development bank.
A draft accord was submitted to top African officials, then to African Ministers, before being cosigned by twenty-three African governments on August 4, 1963, in the form of an agreement establishing the African Development Bank. The agreement came into force on 10 September 1964. Although established officially in under the auspices of the Economic Commission for Africa, the AfDB began operation in 1966 with its headquarters in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.
Although originally only African countries were able to join the bank, since 1982 it has allowed the entry of non-African countries as well.
During its forty years of operations, AfDB has financed 2 885 operations, for a total of $47.5 billion. In 2003, it received an AAA rating from the major financial rating agencies and had a capital of $32.043 billion.

Functions

The AfDB has four principal functions. First, it makes loans and equity investments for the economic and social advancement of the regional member countries (RMC). Second, it provides technical assistance for the preparation and execution of development projects and programs. Third, it promotes investment of public and private capital for development purposes. Fourth, it assists in coordinating development policies and plans of RMCs. The AfDB is also required to give special attention to national and multinational projects and programs which promote regional integration^[1].
In 2005, AfDB approved loans in the amount of 2.29 billions of Units of Account, a value defined in accordance to a basket of currencies equal to the Special Drawing Rights of the International Monetary Fund.
The largest share of AfDB lending goes to infrastructure projects, followed by multisector operations, which are usually loans for various policy reforms or general budget support for a government. AfDB support for infrastructure, private sector development, and the extractive industries (particularly mining) is expected to increase over the coming years.

Group entities

The African Development Bank Group has two other entities: the African Development Fund (ADF) and the Nigeria Trust Fund (NTF).

African Development Fund

Established in 1972, the African Development Fund started operations in 1974^[2]. It provides development finance on concessional terms to low-income RMCs which are unable to borrow on the non-concessional terms of the AfDB. In harmony with its lending strategy, poverty reduction is the main aim of ADF activities. Twenty-four non-African countries along with the AfDB constitute its current membership. The largest ADF shareholder is the United States with approximately 6.5 percent of the total voting shares, followed by Japan with approximately 5.4 percent.
The ADF’s general operations are decided by a Board of Directors, six of which are appointed by the non-African member states and six designated by the AfDB from among the bank's regional Executive Directors.
The ADF’s sources are mainly contributions and periodic replacements by non-African member states. The fund is usually replenished every three years, unless member states decide otherwise. The total donations, at the end of 1996, amounted to $12.58 billion. The ADF lends at no interest rate, with an annual service charge of 0.75%, a commitment fee of 0.5%, and a 50-year repayment period including a 10-year grace period. The Tenth United Kingdom replenishment of the ADF was in 2006.^[3]

Nigeria Trust Fund

The Nigeria Trust Fund (NTF) was established in 1976 by the Nigerian government with an initial capital of $80 million. The NTF is aimed at assisting in the development efforts of the poorest AfDB members.
The NTF uses its resources to provide financing for projects of national or regional importance which further the economic and social development of the low-income RMCs whose economic and social conditions require financing on non-conventional terms. In 1996, the NTF had a total resource base of $432 million. It lends at a 4% interest rate with a 25-year repayment period, including a five year grace period^[4].

Management and control

The AfDB is controlled by a Board of Executive Directors, made up of representatives of its member countries. The voting power on the Board is split according to the size of each member's share, currently 60%-40% between African (or "regional") countries and “non-regional” member countries (“donors”). The largest African Development Bank shareholder is Nigeria with nearly 9 percent of the vote. All member countries of the AfDB are represented on the AfDB Board of Executive Directors.
Mr. Donald Kaberuka is the 7th elected President of the African Development Bank Group, having taken the oath of office on September 1, 2005. He chairs the Boards of both the African Development Bank and the African Development Fund. Mr. Kaberuka is a former finance minister of Rwanda.
Member governments are officially represented at the AfDB by their Minister of Finance, Planning or Cooperation who sits on the AfDB Board of Governors. The AfDB Governors meet once a year (at the Annual Meetings of the AfDB each May) to take major decisions about the institution’s leadership, strategic directions and governing bodies. The Governors typically appoint a representative from their country to serve in the offices of the AfDB’s Board of Executive Directors.
Day-to-day decisions about which loans and grants should be approved and what policies should guide the AfDB’s work are taken by the Board of Executive Directors. Each member country is represented on the Board, but their voting power and influence differs depending on the amount of money they contribute to the AfDB.

Status

With the statute of a regional multilateral development bank, the African Development Bank is engaged in promoting the economic development and social progress of its regional member countries in Africa.
AfDB commits approximately $3 billion annually to African countries, equivalent to only about 6% of development aid to the continent. Its relatively small lending portfolio and its tendency to follow in the footsteps of larger, more prominent public institutions like the World Bank, has meant that the AfDB has received little attention from civil society organizations as well as academia.
AfDB has placed an emphasis on the role of women, education and structural reforms, and lent its support to key initiatives such as debt alleviation for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).
The Bank is currently based in Tunis, Tunisia after relocating from its headquarters in Abidjan, Ivory Coast because of instability there. It employs approximately 1,020 employees as of 2007, and has 78 members: 53 countries in Africa and 25 American, European, and Asian countries.

Recent trends and directions

One of emerging views, repeatedly cited by the AfDB’s Board of Directors and management, is the view that the AfDB should be more “selective” and “country-focused” in its operations. Though this policy has still to be clearly defined, it appears to be driving certain lending priorities.
The infrastructure sector, including power supply, water and sanitation, transport and communications, has traditionally received the largest share of AfDB lending. This focus was re-affirmed in the AFDB’s 2003-2007 Strategic Plan, which identified infrastructure as a priority area for AfDB lending. In 2005, the AfDB approved 23 infrastructure projects for approximately $982 million, which totaled 40 percent of AfDB approvals that year. Given the increased attention to infrastructure development in Africa from donors and borrowers, it is likely that AfDB’s infrastructure lending will increase significantly in the coming years. In 2007, infrastructure operations accounted for approximately 60 percent of the bank's portfolio.
Regional integration infrastructure projects will also be a key part of the AfDB’s future business. According to the AfDB’s 2005 Annual Report, regional economic blocs will make Africa “more competitive in the global market”, while transport and power interconnections between smaller African economies will help create larger markets within the continent. The AfDB’s member countries claim that AFDB, as a multilateral institution, is particularly suited to support regional integration projects.
The AfDB has also been designated the lead agency to facilitate "NEPAD infrastructure initiatives", which are regional integration projects led by African Regional Economic Communities (RECs). Additionally, the AfDB hosts the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa (ICA). The ICA was established by G8 countries to coordinate and encourage infrastructure development in Africa, focusing on regional infrastructure development in particular. The AfDB also helps to prepare projects so they may obtain financing from others sources through an initiative called the Infrastructure Project Preparation Facility (IPPF). So even if the AfDB is not directly involved in financing a particular infrastructure project, it may have helped to make that project possible.
Another key area of concentration of the AfDB’s support of RMCs is the fight against HIV/AIDS. The AfDB has five policies towards securing Africa's future through health funding:

• Institutional capacity building through assistance of policy/strategy formulation and implementation
• Human capital development to create an environment for the operation of national AIDS strategies through training and technical assistance support
• HIV/AIDS multi-sectoral responses with emphasis on prevention and control interventions that include IEC (Information, Education and Communication), STI (Sexually Transmitted Infections) control, VCT (Voluntary Counselling and Testing), infrastructure support for the establishment of laboratories and blood transfusion facilities, and provision of equipment and supplies, including antiretroviral drugs
• Advocacy through participation in international and regional forums to raise political commitment and leadership towards a collaborative effort in the fight against the pandemic among RMCs and development partners
• Partnership development with a view of forging new alliances and revitalizing existing collaboration to cover critical development concerns such as HIV/AIDS and to bringing partnership activities within the framework of the bank's vision^[5]

To date, the bank's contribution in the fight against HIV/AIDS is estimated at over UA 500 million. The bank is also among the initiating partners of AIDS in Africa – Scenarios for the future, a project whose outcome will enable governments and development partners alike to make strategic choices of current and future development paths and define their activities accordingly in order to face the challenges posed by HIV/AIDS.
Energy projects are likely to become a more important area of the AFDB’s infrastructure work, given the lack of access to energy services across Africa and continued high oil prices affecting oil-importing countries. It is not clear if the AFDB’s role in the energy sector will prioritize energy projects for domestic consumption or for export, although the AfDB has supported both in the past. The AFDB is currently drafting an energy policy and developing its contribution to the G8-mandated Clean Energy Investment Framework.
Although there is no official statement or consensus to this effect, AFDB lending for agriculture, (non-infrastructure) rural development and social sectors, such as health and education, is reportedly likely to decrease over the coming years.

Prospects

The AFDB today is an institution whose financial standing has been restored from the near collapse of 1995, but whose operational credibility remains a work-in-progress. A working group convened by the Center for Global Development, an independent Washington think tank, release a report in September 2006 that offered six recommendations for Bank's president and board of directors on broad principles to guide the Bank’s renewal. The report contains six recommendations for management and shareholders as they address the urgent task of reforming Africa’s development bank. Prominent among the recommendations is a strong focus on infrastructure.
AfDB is still a relatively small source of development finance for Africa. According to the most recent figures, the AfDB provides only 6 percent of total development assistance to the continent. Through its International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank annually approves about four times more in low-interest loans and grants to Africa than the AfDB does. The AfDB lacks the financial resources, the staff capacity and the range of staff skills and experience of the World Bank. For example, at the World Bank there are more than four times the number of staff working on any given project than at the AfDB. A number of the AfDB's projects, especially its policy loans, are financed jointly with the World Bank and other donors. The AfDB also relies extensively on World Bank research and analysis. As a larger institution and often the lead financier on joint projects, the World Bank attracts more attention than the AFDB.
While the AFDB’s lending had not expanded significantly in recent years, 2006 figures indicate that things may be changing. Between 2005 and 2006, the AfDB’s lending activities increased by more than 30 percent to $3.4 billion. Over the same period, private sector operations doubled in value. The AFDB has specific mandates from the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and other international organizations to take the lead amongst financial and development institutions in areas such as infrastructure, regional integration, and banking and financial standards in Africa. These mandates have also increased the AFDB’s profile in the media. The increased international emphasis on Africa’s development needs in recent years (for example, surrounding the 2005 Gleneagles G8 Summit), and on the importance of infrastructure investment in Africa, has highlighted the role of the AfDB.
Some research has indicated that a high percentage of respondents in African countries has a marked preference for additional aid from the African Development Bank, despite the fact its relatively low rating against most of the aid effectiveness criteria found to be important by donor recipients^[6]. This suggests that donor recipients in Africa views on the ‘multilateral donor of choice’ are informed by additional aid effectiveness criteria that are not commonly identified or reported against, though exactly what those criteria have not been discussed.
In general, whereas there has been progress at all levels with regard to democracy, growth and restoring the macro-economic balances in Africa over the past fifteen years, half of sub-Saharan Africa lives on under one dollar a day, and AIDS is threatening the social fabric of the continent. The studies conducted by various organizations (including the African Development Bank and the World Bank) show that, with the exception of northern and southern Africa, the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (reducing by half the number of persons living in poverty and without access to potable water by 2015) will in most cases not be attained. Nevertheless, these same studies indicate that the majority of the African countries can make notable progress to these ends.

Membership

AfDB members in green, ADF members in blue, non-African members in red

AfDB Beneficiary Countries:

Algeria Botswana Egypt Equatorial Guinea Gabon Mauritius

Morocco Namibia Seychelles South Africa Swaziland Tunisia

ADF Beneficiary Countries

Angola Benin Burkina Faso Burundi Cameroon Cape Verde Central African Republic Chad Comoros Democratic Republic of the Congo Congo Côte d'Ivoire Djibouti Eritrea Ethiopia Gambia Ghana Guinea Guinea-Bissau

Kenya Lesotho Liberia Madagascar Malawi Mali Mauritania Mozambique Niger Rwanda São Tomé and Príncipe Senegal Sierra Leone Somalia Sudan Tanzania Togo Uganda Zambia

AFDB and ADF Beneficiary Countries:

Nigeria Zimbabwe

Note: All countries in the African Union including Mauritania but excluding the SADR are eligible for NTF benefits. Morocco is also eligible though not a part of the African Union.
Non-African Member Countries:

Argentina Austria Belgium Brazil Canada China Denmark Finlan France Germany India  Italy

Japan Kuwait Netherlands Norway Portugal Saudi Arabia South Korea Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey United Kingdom United States

United Nations Development Business

The United Nations launched Development Business in 1978 with the support of the World Bank, and many other major development banks from around the world. Today, Development Business is the primary publication for all major multilateral development banks including the African Development Bank, United Nations agencies, and several national governments, many of whom have made the publication of their tenders and contracts in Development Business a mandatory requirement.^[7]

See also

• African Economic Outlook is published annually by the OECD Development Centre and the African Development Bank.
• Asian Development Bank

Inter-American Development Bank

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Inter-American Development Bank
Abbreviation	IDB/BID
Type	International organization
Headquarters	Washington, DC
Membership	48 countries
Official languages	English, Spanish, French, Portuguese
President	Luis Alberto Moreno
Main organ	Board of Governors
Staff	About 2,000
Website	http://www.iadb.org/

The Inter-American Development Bank (IADB or IDB or BID) is the largest source of development financing for Latin America and the Caribbean.^[1] Established in 1959, the IDB supports Latin American and Caribbean economic development, social development and regional integration by lending to governments and government agencies, including State corporations.
The IDB has four official languages: English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. Its official names in the other three languages are as follows:

Language	Name
French	Banque interaméricaine de développement;
Portuguese	Banco Interamericano de Desenvolvimento
Spanish	Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo

In all three other languages the Bank uses the acronym "BID".

History

At the First Pan-American Conference in 1890, the idea of a development institution for Latin America was first suggested during the earliest efforts to create an inter-American system. The IDB became a reality under an initiative proposed by President Juscelino Kubitshek of Brazil. The Bank was formally created in 1959, when the Organization of American States drafter the Articles of Agreement establishing the Inter-American Development Bank.

Member states

Borrowing members in green, non-borrowing members in red

The Bank is owned by 48 sovereign states, which are its shareholders and members. Only the 26 borrowing countries are able to receive loans.

• Borrowing: Argentina, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, Venezuela
• Non-borrowing: Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States

Operations

The IDB is the largest multilateral source of financing for the Latin America and the Caribbean region.^[2] The IDB makes loans to the governments of its borrowing member countries at standard commercial rates of interest, and has preferred creditor status, meaning that borrowers will repay loans to the IDB before repaying other obligations to other lenders such as commercial banks.

Governance

The IDB is governed by its Board of Governors, a 48-member body who regularly meets once a year. In March 2010, reunited in Cancun, Mexico, the Board of Governors of the Bank agreed on a $70 billion capital increase, along with full debt forgiveness for Haiti, its poorest member country, devastated by an earthquake that had destroyed its capital,Port-au-Prince, two months before.
The developing countries that borrow from the IDB are the majority shareholders, and therefore control the majority of the decision-making bodies of the Bank. Each member's voting power is determined by its shareholding: its subscription to the Bank's ordinary capital. The United States holds 30 percent of the Bank's shares, while the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean combined hold 50.02 percent.^[3] This arrangement is unique in that the developing member countries, as a group, are the majority shareholders. Though this arrangement was first viewed as risky, it is believed by some that strict peer pressure prevents the borrowers from defaulting, even when under severe economic pressure. However, Argentina did default in 2001; this was publicly announced in 2002.

Priority areas

• Poverty reduction
• Sustainable energy and climate change
• Water and sanitation
• Infrastructure
• Education and innovation
• Opportunity for the majority

Capital Increase

On July 21, 2010, the Board of Governors agreed to increase the Bank’s ordinary capital by $70 billion, the largest expansion of resources in the Bank’s history, and to provide an unprecedented package of financial support to Haiti. The agreement also includes a replenishment of the Fund for Special Operations, which finances operations in the region’s poorest nations.
The Bank’s capital increase will be implemented through 2015 as parliaments in each of its member countries appropriate the necessary funds.^[4]

Haiti

After the Jan. 12 earthquake, the IDB pledged to provide Haiti more than $2.2 billion in grants over the next decade to fund its recovery efforts and long-term development plans, working closely with the Haitian government and the international community. The Bank’s Board of Governors also agreed to cancel all of Haiti’s outstanding debt.^[5]
President Preval also gave the Inter-American Development Bank the mandate to work with the Education Ministry and the National Commission preparing a major reform of the Education System in a 5 year plan.^[6]

Financial resources

The callable capital pledged by the 22 non-borrowing members, which include the world's wealthiest developed countries, therefore functions as a guarantee for the bonds that the IDB sells. This arrangement ensures that the IDB maintains a triple-A credit rating, and as a result can make loans to its borrowing member countries at rates of interest similar to those that commercial banks charge their largest corporate borrowers. At the same time, the 22 non-borrowing countries are only putting up guarantees – not actual funds – so their support of the IDB's lending operations has a minimal impact on their national budgets.
The funds that the IDB lends are raised by selling bonds to institutional investors at standard commercial rates of interest. The bonds are backed by (a) the sum of the capital subscriptions actually paid in by the Bank's 47 member countries, plus (b) the sum of the callable capital subscriptions pledged by the Bank's 22 non-borrowing member countries. Together these constitute the Bank's ordinary capital, some US$101 billion. Of this amount, 4.3 percent is paid in, while the remaining 95.7 percent is callable.
Aside from its lending activities for its member countries, the IDB also has lending operations with private sector companies, both directly and by means of the Inter-American Investment Corporation (IIC), a multilateral lender created by the IDB member countries to help develop small and medium-sized companies in Latin America and the Caribbean. An affiliate of the IDB, the Multilateral Investment Fund (FOMIN), uses loans, grants and equity investments to support private projects seeking to bring innovation, boost entrepreneurship, or expand access to financing throughout the region. The Bank, the Corporation and the Fund constitute the IDB Group.

Criticism

There are claims that operations funded by the IDB may have adverse impacts on local environments and indigenous peoples. According to the Bank Information Center (BIC), "civil society groups have long been concerned about the negative impacts the IDB's operations have on the environment and on indigenous and traditional peoples, as well as on the prospects for genuine economic and democratic reform in the region." The BIC cites environmental and social damage funded by the IDB as adversely impacting local economies, contrary to IDB's stated goal of fostering social and economic prosperity.^[2]

See also

• Argentine economic crisis (1999–2002)

International Monetary Fund

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
 

The official logo

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is the intergovernmental organization that oversees the global financial system by following the macroeconomic policies of its member countries, in particular those with an impact on exchange rate and the balance of payments. It is an organization formed with a stated objective of stabilizing international exchange rates and facilitating development through the enforcement of liberalising economic policies^[1][2] on other countries as a condition for loans, restructuring or aid.^[3] It also offers loans with varying levels of conditionality, mainly to poorer countries. Its headquarters are in Washington, D.C., United States. The IMF's relatively high influence in world affairs and development has drawn heavy criticism from some sources.^[4][5]

Organization and purpose

IMF "Headquarters 1" in Washington, D.C.

The International Monetary Fund was conceived in July 1944 originally with 45 members and came into existence in December 1945 when 29 countries signed the agreement,^[6] with a goal to stabilize exchange rates and assist the reconstruction of the world's international payment system. Countries contributed to a pool which could be borrowed from, on a temporary basis, by countries with payment imbalances (Condon, 2007). The IMF was important when it was first created because it helped the world stabilize the economic system. The IMF works to improve the economies of its member countries.^[7] The IMF describes itself as "an organization of 187 countries (as of July 2010), working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty".

Membership

 IMF member states

 IMF member states not accepting the obligations of Article VIII, Sections 2, 3, and 4^[8]

Members of the IMF are 186 of the UN members and Kosovo.^[9][10].
Former members are: Cuba (left in 1964),^[11], Taiwan (expelled in 1980 due to political reasons),^[12]
The other non-members are: North Korea, Andorra, Monaco, Liechtenstein, Nauru, Cook Islands, Niue, Vatican City and the rest of the states with limited recognition.
All member states participate directly in the IMF. Member states are represented on a 24-member Executive Board (five Executive Directors are appointed by the five members with the largest quotas, nineteen Executive Directors are elected by the remaining members), and all members appoint a Governor to the IMF's Board of Governors.^[13]
All members of the IMF are also IBRD members, and vice versa.

History

IMF "Headquarters 2" in Washington, D.C.

The International Monetary Fund was conceived in July 1944 during the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference. The representatives of 45 governments met in the Mount Washington Hotel in the area of Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States, with the delegates to the conference agreeing on a framework for international economic cooperation.^[14] The IMF was formally organized on December 27, 1945, when the first 29 countries signed its Articles of Agreement. The statutory purposes of the IMF today are the same as when they were formulated in 1943 (see #Assistance and reforms).
The IMF's influence in the global economy steadily increased as it accumulated more members. The number of IMF member countries has more than quadrupled from the 44 states involved in its establishment, reflecting in particular the attainment of political independence by many developing countries and more recently the collapse of the Soviet bloc. The expansion of the IMF's membership, together with the changes in the world economy, have required the IMF to adapt in a variety of ways to continue serving its purposes effectively.
In 2008, faced with a shortfall in revenue, the International Monetary Fund's executive board agreed to sell part of the IMF's gold reserves. On April 27, 2008, IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn welcomed the board's decision of April 7, 2008 to propose a new framework for the fund, designed to close a projected $400 million budget deficit over the next few years. The budget proposal includes sharp spending cuts of $100 million until 2011 that will include up to 380 staff dismissals.^[15]
At the 2009 G-20 London summit, it was decided that the IMF would require additional financial resources to meet prospective needs of its member countries during the ongoing global financial crisis. As part of that decision, the G-20 leaders pledged to increase the IMF's supplemental cash tenfold to $500 billion, and to allocate to member countries another $250 billion via Special Drawing Rights.^[16][17]
On October 23, 2010, the Ministers of Finance of G-20, governing most of the IMF member quotas, agreed to reform IMF and shift about 6% of the voting shares to major developing nations and countries with emerging markets.^[18] As of August 2010 Romania ($13.9 billion), Ukraine ($12.66 billion), Hungary ($11.7 billion) and Greece ($30 billion) are the largest borrowers of the fund.^[19]

Data dissemination systems

IMF Data Dissemination Systems participants:

IMF member using SDDS

 IMF member, using GDDS

IMF member, not using any of the DDSystems
non-IMF entity using SDDS

non-IMF entity using GDDS

 no interaction with the IMF

In 1995, the International Monetary Fund began work on data dissemination standards with the view of guiding IMF member countries to disseminate their economic and financial data to the public. The International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) endorsed the guidelines for the dissemination standards and they were split into two tiers: The General Data Dissemination System (GDDS) and the Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS).
The International Monetary Fund executive board approved the SDDS and GDDS in 1996 and 1997 respectively and subsequent amendments were published in a revised "Guide to the General Data Dissemination System". The system is aimed primarily at statisticians and aims to improve many aspects of statistical systems in a country. It is also part of the World Bank Millennium Development Goals and Poverty Reduction Strategic Papers.
The IMF established a system and standard to guide members in the dissemination to the public of their economic and financial data. Currently there are two such systems: General Data Dissemination System (GDDS) and its superset Special Data Dissemination System (SDDS), for those member countries having or seeking access to international capital markets.
The primary objective of the GDDS is to encourage IMF member countries to build a framework to improve data quality and increase statistical capacity building. This will involve the preparation of meta data describing current statistical collection practices and setting improvement plans. Upon building a framework, a country can evaluate statistical needs, set priorities in improving the timeliness, transparency, reliability and accessibility of financial and economic data.
Some countries initially used the GDDS, but lately upgraded to SDDS.
Some entities that are not themselves IMF members also contribute statistical data to the systems:

• Palestinian Authority – GDDS
• Hong Kong – SDDS
• European Union institutions:
• the European Central Bank for the Eurozone – SDDS
• Eurostat for the whole EU – SDDS, thus providing data from  Cyprus (not using any DDSystem on its own) and  Malta (using only GDDS on its own)

Members

Membership qualifications

The application will be considered first by the IMF's Executive Board. After its consideration, the Executive Board will submit a report to the Board of Governors of the IMF with recommendations in the form of a "Membership Resolution". These recommendations cover the amount of quota in the IMF, the form of payment of the subscription, and other customary terms and conditions of membership.^[20] After the Board of Governors has adopted the "Membership Resolution," the applicant state needs to take the legal steps required under its own law to enable it to sign the IMF's Articles of Agreement and to fulfill the obligations of IMF membership.
Similarly, any member country can withdraw from the Fund, although that is rare. For example, in April 2007, the president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa announced the expulsion of the World Bank representative in the country. A few days later, at the end of April, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez announced that the country would withdraw from the IMF and the World Bank. Chavez dubbed both organizations as "the tools of the empire" that "serve the interests of the North".^[21] As of June 2009, both countries remain as members of both organizations. Venezuela was forced to back down because a withdrawal would have triggered default clauses in the country's sovereign bonds^{[citation needed]}.
A member's quota in the IMF determines the amount of its subscription, its voting weight, its access to IMF financing, and its allocation of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). A member state cannot unilaterally increase its quota—increases must be approved by the Executive Board of IMF and are linked to formulas that include many variables such as the size of a country in the world economy. For example, in 2001, the People's Republic of China was prevented from increasing its quota as high as it wished, ensuring it remained at the level of the smallest G7 economy (Canada).^[22]
In September 2005, the IMF's member countries agreed to the first round of ad hoc quota increases for four countries, including China^{[citation needed]}. On March 28, 2008, the IMF's Executive Board ended a period of extensive discussion and negotiation over a major package of reforms to enhance the institution's governance that would shift quota and voting shares from advanced to emerging markets and developing countries^{[citation needed]}. Under existing arrangements, the industrialised countries(including Mexico) hold 57 per cent of the IMF votes^{[citation needed]}. But the financial crisis has tilted control away from heavily indebted mature economies, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, in favour of the fast-growing, cash-rich, so-called “BRIC” economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China^{[citation needed]}.
Since the United States has by far the largest share of votes (approx. 17%) amongst IMF members (see table below), it has little to lose relative to European nations. At the 2009 G-20 Pittsburgh summit, the US raised the possibility that some European countries would reduce their votes in favour of increasing the votes for emerging economies. However, both France and Britain were particularly reluctant as an increase in China's votes would mean China now has more votes than the UK and France. At a subsequent IMF meeting in Istanbul, the same month as the Pittsburgh Summit, IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn then highlighted that "If we don't correct them, we'll have the recipe for the next major crisis."^[23] Citing the seriousness of the issue to be tackled.

Members' quotas and voting power, and board of governors

Major decisions require an 85% supermajority.^[24] The United States has always been the only country able to block a supermajority on its own. The following table shows the top 20 member countries in terms of voting power (2,220,817 votes in total). The 27 member states of the European Union have a combined vote of 710,786 (32.07%).^[25]
On October 23, 2010, the Ministers of Finance of G-20, governing most of the IMF member quotas, agreed to reform IMF and shift about 6% of the voting shares to major developing nations and countries with emerging markets.^[18]

Members' quotas and voting power, and board of governors
IMF member country	Quota: millions of SDRs	Quota: percentage of total	Governor	Alternate Governor	Votes: number	Votes: percentage of total
United States	37,149.3	17.09	Timothy F. Geithner	Ben Bernanke	371,743	16.74
Japan	13,312.8	6.12	Yoshihiko Noda	Masaaki Shirakawa	133,378	6.01
Germany	13,008.2	5.98	Axel A. Weber	Wolfgang Schäuble	130,332	5.87
United Kingdom	10,738.5	4.94	George Osborne	Mervyn King	107,635	4.85
France	10,738.5	4.94	Christine Lagarde	Christian Noyer	107,635	4.85
China	8,090.1	3.72	Zhou Xiaochuan	Yi Gang	81,151	3.65
Italy	7,055.5	3.24	Giulio Tremonti	Mario Draghi	70,805	3.19
Saudi Arabia	6,985.5	3.21	Ibrahim A. Al-Assaf	Hamad Al-Sayari	70,105	3.16
Canada	6,369.2	2.93	Jim Flaherty	Mark Carney	63,942	2.88
Russia	5,945.4	2.73	Aleksei Kudrin	Sergey Ignatyev	59,704	2.69
Netherlands	5,162.4	2.37	Nout Wellink	L.B.J. van Geest	51,874	2.34
Belgium	4,605.2	2.12	Guy Quaden	Jean-Pierre Arnoldi	46,302	2.08
India	4,158.2	1.91	Pranab Mukherjee	Duvvuri Subbarao	41,832	1.88
Switzerland	3,458.5	1.59	Jean-Pierre Roth	Hans-Rudolf Merz	34,835	1.57
Australia	3,236.4	1.49	Wayne Swan	Ken Henry	32,614	1.47
Mexico	3,152.8	1.45	Agustín Carstens	Guillermo Ortiz	31,778	1.43
Spain	3,048.9	1.40	Elena Salgado	Miguel Fernández Ordóñez	30,739	1.38
Brazil	3,036.1	1.40	Guido Mantega	Henrique Meirelles	30,611	1.38
South Korea	2,927.3	1.35	Okyu Kwon	Seong Tae Lee	29,523	1.33
Venezuela	2,659.1	1.22	Gastón Parra Luzardo	Rodrigo Cabeza Morales	26,841	1.21
remaining 166 countries	62,593.8	28.79	respective	respective	667,438	30.05

Assistance and reforms

Main articles: Washington consensus and Structural adjustment program

The primary mission of the IMF is to provide financial assistance to countries that experience serious financial and economic difficulties using funds deposited with the IMF from the institution's 187 member countries. Member states with balance of payments problems, which often arise from these difficulties, may request loans to help fill gaps between what countries earn and/or are able to borrow from other official lenders and what countries must spend to operate, including to cover the cost of importing basic goods and services. In return, countries are usually required to launch certain reforms, which have often been dubbed the "Washington Consensus". These reforms are thought to be beneficial to countries with fixed exchange rate policies that may engage in fiscal, monetary, and political practices which may lead to the crisis itself. For example, nations with severe budget deficits, rampant inflation, strict price controls, or significantly over-valued or under-valued currencies run the risk of facing balance of payment crises. Thus, the structural adjustment programs are at least ostensibly intended to ensure that the IMF is actually helping to prevent financial crises rather than merely funding financial recklessness.

Support of military dictatorships

The role of the Bretton Woods institutions has been controversial since the late Cold War period, due to claims that the IMF policy makers supported military dictatorships friendly to American and European corporations and other anti-communist regimes. Critics also claim that the IMF is generally apathetic or hostile to their views of human rights, and labor rights. The controversy has helped spark the Anti-globalization movement. Arguments in favor of the IMF say that economic stability is a precursor to democracy; however, critics highlight various examples in which democratized countries fell after receiving IMF loans.^[26]
In the 1960s, the IMF and the World Bank supported the government of Brazil’s military dictator Castello Branco with tens of millions of dollars of loans and credit that were denied to previous democratically elected governments.^[27]
Countries that were or are under a military dictatorship whilst being members of the IMF/World Bank (support from various sources in $Billion):^[

Support of military dictatorships
Country indebted to IMF/World Bank	Dictator	In power	Debt %[clarification needed] at start of dictatorship	Debt % at end of dictatorship	Country debts in 1996	Dictator debts generated $ billion	Dictator generated debt % of total debt
Argentina	Military dictatorship	1976 - 1983	9.3	48.9	93.8	39.6	42%
Bolivia	Military dictatorship	1962 - 1980	0	2.7	5.2	2.7	52%
Brazil	Military dictatorship	1964 - 1985	5.1	105.1	179	100	56%
Chile	Augusto Pinochet	1973 - 1989	5.2	18	27.4	12.8	47%
El Salvador	Military dictatorship	1979 - 1994	0.9	2.2	2.2	1.3	59%
Ethiopia	Mengistu Haile Mariam	1977 - 1991	0.5	4.2	10	3.7	37%
Haiti	Jean-Claude Duvalier	1971 - 1986	0	0.7	0.9	0.7	78%
Indonesia	Suharto	1967 - 1998	3	129	129	126	98%
Kenya	[[Daniel arap Moi|Moi]Non, c'est pas Moi, c'est Toi]	|2.7	6.9	6.9	4.2	61%
Liberia	Doe	1979 - 1990	0.6	1.9	2.1	1.3	62%
Malawi	Banda	1964 - 1994	0.1	2	2.3	1.9	83%
Nigeria	Buhari/Babangida/Abacha	1984 - 1998	17.8	31.4	31.4	13.6	43%
Pakistan	Zia-ul Haq	1977 - 1988	7.6	17
Pakistan	Pervez Musharraf	1999 - 2008
Paraguay	Stroessner	1954 - 1989	0.1	2.4	2.1	2.3	96%
Philippines	Marcos	1965 - 1986	1.5	28.3	41.2	26.8	65%
Somalia	Siad Barre	1969 - 1991	0	2.4	2.6	2.4	92%
South Africa	Apartheid	1948 - 1992		18.7	23.6	18.7	79%
Sudan	Nimeiry/al-Mahdi	1969 - present	0.3	17	17	16.7	98%
Thailand	Military dictatorship	1950 - 1983	0	13.9	90.8	13.9	15%
Zaire/Democratic Republic of the Congo	Mobutu	1965 - 1997	0.3	12.8	12.8	12.5	98%

Notes: Debt at takeover by dictatorship; earliest data published by the World Bank is for 1970. Debt at end of dictatorship (or 1996, most recent date for World Bank data).

Effectiveness

Two criticisms from economists have been that financial aid is always bound to so-called "Conditionalities", including Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP). It is claimed that conditionalities (economic performance targets established as a precondition for IMF loans) retard social stability and hence inhibit the stated goals of the IMF, while Structural Adjustment Programs lead to an increase in poverty in recipient countries.^[29]
The IMF sometimes advocates "austerity programmes," increasing taxes even when the economy is weak, in order to generate government revenue and bring budgets closer to a balance, thus reducing budget deficits. Countries are often advised to lower their corporate tax rate. These policies were criticized by Joseph E. Stiglitz, former chief economist and Senior Vice President at the World Bank, in his book Globalization and Its Discontents.^[30] He argued that by converting to a more Monetarist approach, the fund no longer had a valid purpose, as it was designed to provide funds for countries to carry out Keynesian reflations, and that the IMF "was not participating in a conspiracy, but it was reflecting the interests and ideology of the Western financial community".^[31]
Argentina, which had been considered by the IMF to be a model country in its compliance to policy proposals by the Bretton Woods institutions, experienced a catastrophic economic crisis in 2001,^[32] which some believe to have been caused by IMF-induced budget restrictions — which undercut the government's ability to sustain national infrastructure even in crucial areas such as health, education, and security — and privatization of strategically vital national resources.^[33] Others attribute the crisis to Argentina's misdesigned fiscal federalism, which caused subnational spending to increase rapidly.^[34] The crisis added to widespread hatred of this institution in Argentina and other South American countries, with many blaming the IMF for the region's economic problems.^[35] The current — as of early 2006 — trend towards moderate left-wing governments in the region and a growing concern with the development of a regional economic policy largely independent of big business pressures has been ascribed to this crisis.
Another example of where IMF Structural Adjustment Programmes aggravated the problem was in Kenya. Before the IMF got involved in the country, the Kenyan central bank oversaw all currency movements in and out of the country. The IMF mandated that the Kenyan central bank had to allow easier currency movement. However, the adjustment resulted in very little foreign investment, but allowed Kamlesh Manusuklal Damji Pattni, with the help of corrupt government officials, to siphon off billions of Kenyan shillings in what came to be known as the Goldenberg scandal, leaving the country worse off than it was before the IMF reforms were implemented.^{[citation needed]} In an interview, the former Romanian Prime Minister Tăriceanu stated that "Since 2005, IMF is constantly making mistakes when it appreciates the country's economic performances".^[36]
Overall, the IMF success record is perceived as limited.^{[citation needed]} While it was created to help stabilize the global economy, since 1980 critics claim over 100 countries (or reputedly most of the Fund's membership) have experienced a banking collapse that they claim have reduced GDP by four percent or more, far more than at any time in Post-Depression history.^{[citation needed]} The considerable delay in the IMF's response to any crisis, and the fact that it tends to only respond to them (or even create them)^[37] rather than prevent them, has led many economists to argue for reform. In 2006, an IMF reform agenda called the Medium Term Strategy was widely endorsed by the institution's member countries. The agenda includes changes in IMF governance to enhance the role of developing countries in the institution's decision-making process and steps to deepen the effectiveness of its core mandate, which is known as economic surveillance or helping member countries adopt macroeconomic policies that will sustain global growth and reduce poverty. On June 15, 2007, the Executive Board of the IMF adopted the 2007 Decision on Bilateral Surveillance, a landmark measure that replaced a 30-year-old decision of the Fund's member countries on how the IMF should analyse economic outcomes at the country level.

Impact on access to food

A number of civil society organizations^[38] have criticized the IMF's policies for their impact on people's access to food, particularly in developing countries. In October 2008, former US President Bill Clinton joined this chorus in a speech to the United Nations World Food Day, which criticized the World Bank and IMF for their policies on food and agriculture:

We need the World Bank, the IMF, all the big foundations, and all the governments to admit that, for 30 years, we all blew it, including me when I was President. We were wrong to believe that food was like some other product in international trade, and we all have to go back to a more responsible and sustainable form of agriculture.

—Former US President Bill Clinton, Speech at United Nations World Food Day, October 16, 2008^[39]

Impact on public health

In 2008, a study by analysts from Cambridge and Yale universities published on the open-access Public Library of Science concluded that strict conditions on the international loans by the IMF resulted in thousands of deaths in Eastern Europe by tuberculosis as public health care had to be weakened. In the 21 countries to which the IMF had given loans, tuberculosis deaths rose by 16.6%.^[40]
In 2009, a book by Rick Rowden titled, The Deadly Ideas of Neoliberalism: How the IMF has Undermined Public Health and the Fight Against Aids, claimed that the IMF's monetarist approach towards prioritizing price stability (low inflation) and fiscal restraint (low budget deficits) was unnecessarily restrictive and has prevented developing countries from being able to scale up long-term public investment as a percent of GDP in the underlying public health infrastructure. The book claimed the consequences have been chronically underfunded public health systems, leading to dilapidated health infrastructure, inadequate numbers of health personnel, and demoralizing working conditions that have fueled the "push factors" driving the brain drain of nurses migrating from poor countries to rich ones, all of which has undermined public health systems and the fight against HIV/AIDS in developing countries.^[41]

Impact on environment

IMF policies have been repeatedly criticized for making it difficult for indebted countries to avoid ecosystem-damaging projects that generate cash flow, in particular oil, coal and forest-destroying lumber and agriculture projects. Ecuador for example had to defy IMF advice repeatedly in order to pursue the protection of its rain forests, though paradoxically this need was cited in IMF argument to support that country. The IMF acknowledged this paradox in a March 2010 staff position report ^[42] which proposed the IMF Green Fund, a mechanism to issue Special Drawing Rights directly to pay for climate harm prevention and potentially other ecological protection as pursued generally by other environmental finance.
While the response to these moves was generally positive ^[43] possibly because ecological protection and energy and infrastructure transformation are more politically neutral than pressures to change social policy. Some experts voiced concern that the IMF was not representative, and that the IMF proposals to generate only 200 billion dollars/year by 2020 with the SDRs as seed funds, did not go far enough to undo the general incentive to pursue destructive projects inherent in the world commodity trading and banking systems - criticisms often levelled at the WTO and large global banking institutions.
In the context of the May 2010 European banking crisis, some observers also noted that Spain and California, two troubled economies within Europe and the US respectively, and also Germany, the primary and politically most fragile supporter of a Euro currency bailout would benefit from IMF recognition of their leadership in green technology, and directly from Green-Fund generated demand for their exports, which might also improve their credit standing with international bankers.

Criticism from free-market advocates

Typically the IMF and its supporters advocate a monetarist approach. As such, adherents of supply-side economics generally find themselves in open disagreement with the IMF. The IMF frequently advocates currency devaluation, criticized by proponents of supply-side economics as inflationary. Secondly they link higher taxes under "austerity programmes" with economic contraction.
Currency devaluation is recommended by the IMF to the governments of poor nations with struggling economies. Some economists claim these IMF policies are destructive to economic prosperity.^[44]
Complaints have also been directed toward the International Monetary Fund gold reserve being undervalued. At its inception in 1945, the IMF pegged gold at US$35 per Troy ounce of gold. In 1973, the administration of US President Richard Nixon lifted the fixed asset value of gold in favor of a world market price. This need to lift the fixed asset value of gold had largely come about because Petrodollars outside the United States were worth more than could be backed by the gold at Fort Knox under the fixed exchange rate system.^{[citation needed]} Following this, the fixed exchange rates of currencies tied to gold were switched to a floating rate, also based on market price and exchange. The fixed rate system had only served to limit the nominal amount of assistance the organization could provide to debt-ridden countries.

Managing director

Historically the IMF's managing director has been European and the president of the World Bank has been from the United States. However, this standard is increasingly being questioned and competition for these two posts may soon open up to include other qualified candidates from any part of the world. Executive Directors, who confirm the managing director, are voted in by Finance Ministers from countries they represent. The First Deputy Managing Director of the IMF, the second-in-command, has traditionally been (and is today) an American.
The IMF is for the most part controlled by the major Western Powers, with voting rights on the Executive board based on a quota derived from the relative size of a country in the global economy. Critics claim that the board rarely votes and passes issues contradicting the will of the US or Europeans, which combined represent the largest bloc of shareholders in the Fund. On the other hand, Executive Directors that represent emerging and developing countries have many times strongly defended the group of nations in their constituency. Alexandre Kafka, who represented several Latin American countries for 32 years as Executive Director (including 21 as the dean of the Board), is a prime example.
Rodrigo Rato became the ninth Managing Director of the IMF on June 7, 2004 and resigned his post at the end of October 2007.
EU ministers agreed on the candidacy of Dominique Strauss-Kahn as managing director of the IMF at the Economic and Financial Affairs Council meeting in Brussels on July 10, 2007. On September 28, 2007, the International Monetary Fund's 24 executive directors elected Mr. Strauss-Kahn as new managing director, with broad support including from the United States and the 27-nation European Union. Strauss-Kahn succeeded Spain's Rodrigo de Rato, who retired on October 31, 2007.^[45] The only other nominee was Josef Tošovský, a late candidate proposed by Russia. Strauss-Kahn said: "I am determined to pursue without delay the reforms needed for the IMF to make financial stability serve the international community, while fostering growth and employment."^[46]

Dates	Name	Nationality
May 6, 1946 – May 5, 1951	Camille Gutt	Belgium
August 3, 1951 – October 3, 1956	Ivar Rooth	Sweden
November 21, 1956 – May 5, 1963	Per Jacobsson	Sweden
September 1, 1963 – August 31, 1973	Pierre-Paul Schweitzer	France
September 1, 1973 – June 16, 1978	Johannes Witteveen	Netherlands
June 17, 1978 – January 15, 1987	Jacques de Larosière	France
January 16, 1987 – February 14, 2000	Michel Camdessus	France
May 1, 2000 – March 4, 2004	Horst Köhler	Germany
June 7, 2004 – October 31, 2007	Rodrigo Rato	Spain
November 1, 2007 – present	Dominique Strauss-Kahn	France

In the media

Life and Debt, a documentary film, deals with the IMF's policies' influence on Jamaica and its economy from a critical point of view.
The Debt of Dictators^[47] explores the lending of billions of dollars by the IMF, World Bank multinational banks and other international financial institutions to brutal dictators throughout the world. (see IMF/World Bank support of military dictatorships)

World Bank

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World Bank
World Bank logo
Type	International organization
Legal status	Treaty
Purpose/focus	Crediting
Location	Washington DC
Membership	187 countries
President	Robert B. Zoellick
Main organ	Board of Directors[1]
Parent organization	World Bank Group
Website	http://www.worldbank.org/

The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans^[2] to developing countries for capital programmes. The World Bank has a goal of reducing poverty. By law, all of its decisions must be guided by a commitment to promote foreign investment, international trade and facilitate capital investment.^[3]
The World Bank differs from the World Bank Group, in that the World Bank comprises only two institutions: the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA), whereas the latter incorporates these two in addition to three more:^[4] International Finance Corporation (IFC), Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), and International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).

History

John Maynard Keynes (right) represented the United Kingdom at the conference, and Harry Dexter White (left) represented the United States.

The World Bank is one of five institutions created at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944. The International Monetary Fund, a related institution, is the second. Delegates from many countries attended the Bretton Woods Conference. The most powerful countries in attendance were the United States and United Kingdom, which dominated negotiations.^[5]
Although both are based in Washington, D.C., the World Bank is, by custom, headed by an American, while the IMF is led by a European.

1945–1968

From its conception until 1967 the bank undertook a relatively low level of lending. Fiscal conservatism and careful screening of loan applications was common. Bank staff attempted to balance the priorities of providing loans for reconstruction and development with the need to instill confidence in the bank.^[6]
Bank president John McCloy selected France to be the first recipient of World Bank aid; two other applications from Poland and Chile were rejected. The loan was for $250 million, half the amount requested and came with strict conditions. Staff from the World Bank monitored the use of the funds, ensuring that the French government would present a balanced budget and give priority of debt repayment to the World Bank over other governments. The United States State Department told the French government that communist elements within the Cabinet needed to be removed. The French Government complied with this diktat and removed the Communist coalition government. Within hours the loan to France was approved.^[7]
The Marshall Plan of 1947 caused lending by the bank to change as many European countries received aid that competed with World Bank loans. Emphasis was shifted to non-European countries and until 1968, loans were earmarked for projects that would enable a borrower country to repay loans (such projects as ports, highway systems, and power plants).

1968–1980

From 1968 to 1980, the bank concentrated on meeting the basic needs of people in the developing world.^{[citation needed]} The size and number of loans to borrowers was greatly increased as loan targets expanded from infrastructure into social services and other sectors.^{[citation needed]}
These changes can be attributed to Robert McNamara who was appointed to the presidency in 1968 by Lyndon B. Johnson.^[8] McNamara imported a technocratic managerial style to the Bank that he had used as United States Secretary of Defense and President of the Ford Motor Company.^[9] McNamara shifted bank policy toward measures such as building schools and hospitals, improving literacy and agricultural reform. McNamara created a new system of gathering information from potential borrower nations that enabled the bank to process loan applications much faster. To finance more loans, McNamara told bank treasurer Eugene Rotberg to seek out new sources of capital outside of the northern banks that had been the primary sources of bank funding. Rotberg used the global bond market to increase the capital available to the bank.^[10] One consequence of the period of poverty alleviation lending was the rapid rise of third world debt. From 1976 to 1980 developing world debt rose at an average annual rate of 20%.^[11][12]

1980–1989

In 1980, A.W. Clausen replaced McNamara after being nominated by US President Jimmy Carter. Clausen replaced a large number of bank staffers from the McNamara era and instituted a new ideological focus in the bank. The replacement of Chief Economist Hollis B. Chenery by Anne Krueger in 1982 marked a notable policy shift at the bank. Krueger was known for her criticism of development funding as well as third world governments as rent-seeking states.
Lending to service third world debt marked the period of 1980–1989. Structural adjustment policies aimed at streamlining the economies of developing nations (at the expense of health and social services) were also a large part of World Bank policy during this period. UNICEF reported in the late 1980s that the structural adjustment programs of the World Bank were responsible for the "reduced health, nutritional and educational levels for tens of millions of children in Asia, Latin America, and Africa".^[13]

1989–present

From 1989, World Bank policy changed in response to criticism from many groups. Environmental groups and NGOs were incorporated in the lending of the bank in order to mitigate the effects of the past that prompted such harsh criticism.^[14] Bank projects "include" green concerns.

The World Bank headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Leadership

The President of the Bank, currently Robert B. Zoellick, is responsible for chairing the meetings of the Boards of Directors and for overall management of the Bank. Traditionally, the Bank President has always been a US citizen nominated by the United States, the largest shareholder in the bank. The nominee is subject to confirmation by the Board of Governors, to serve for a five-year, renewable term.^[15]
The Executive Directors, representing the Bank's member countries, make up the Board of Directors, usually meeting twice a week to oversee activities such as the approval of loans and guarantees, new policies, the administrative budget, country assistance strategies and borrowing and financing decisions.
The Vice Presidents of the Bank are its principal managers, in charge of regions, sectors, networks and functions. There are 24 Vice-Presidents, three Senior Vice Presidents and two Executive Vice Presidents.

List of Presidents

• Eugene Meyer 1946–1946
• John J. McCloy 1947–1949
• Eugene R. Black, Sr. 1949–1963
• George Woods 1963–1968
• Robert McNamara 1968–1981
• Alden W. Clausen 1981–1986
• Barber Conable 1986–1991
• Lewis T. Preston 1991–1995
• James Wolfensohn 1995–2005
• Paul Wolfowitz 2005–2007
• Robert B. Zoellick 2007–present

Members

Main article: List of World Bank members

The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) has 187 member countries, while the International Development Association (IDA) has 168 members.^[16] Each member state of IBRD should be also a member of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and only members of IBRD are allowed to join other institutions within the Bank (such as IDA).^[17]

Voting power

In 2010, voting powers at the World Bank were revised to increase the voice of developing countries, notably China. The countries with most voting power are now the United States (15.85%), Japan (6.84%), China (4.42%), Germany (4.00%), the United Kingdom (3.75%), and France (3.75%). Under the changes, known as 'Voice Reform - Phase 2', other countries that saw significant gains included South Korea, Turkey, Mexico, Singapore, Greece, Brazil, India, and Spain. Most developed countries' voting power was reduced, along with a few poor countries such as Nigeria. United States', Russia's and Saudi Arabia's voting power was unchanged.^[18][19]

Poverty reduction strategies

For the poorest developing countries in the world, the bank's assistance plans are based on poverty reduction strategies; by combining a cross-section of local groups with an extensive analysis of the country's financial and economic situation the World Bank develops a strategy pertaining uniquely to the country in question. The government then identifies the country's priorities and targets for the reduction of poverty, and the World Bank aligns its aid efforts correspondingly.
Forty-five countries pledged US$25.1 billion in "aid for the world's poorest countries", aid that goes to the World Bank International Development Association (IDA) which distributes the gifts to eighty poorer countries. While wealthier nations sometimes fund their own aid projects, including those for diseases, and although IDA is the recipient of criticism, Robert B. Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, said when the gifts were announced on December 15, 2007, that IDA money "is the core funding that the poorest developing countries rely on".^[20]

Clean Technology Fund management

The World Bank has been assigned temporary management responsibility of the Clean Technology Fund (CTF), focused on making renewable energy cost-competitive with coal-fired power as quickly as possible, but this may not continue after UN's Copenhagen climate change conference in December, 2009, because of the Bank's continued investment in coal-fired power plants.^[21]

Clean Air Initiative

Clean Air Initiative (CAI)^[22] is a World Bank initiative to advance innovative ways to improve air quality in cities through partnerships in selected regions of the world by sharing knowledge and experiences. It includes electric vehicles.

United Nations Development Business

Based on an agreement between the United Nations and the World Bank in 1981, Development Business became the official source for World Bank Procurement Notices, Contract Awards, and Project Approvals.^[23] In 1998, the agreement was re-negotiated, and included in this agreement was a joint venture to create an electronic version of the publication via the World Wide Web. Today, Development Business is the primary publication for all major multilateral development banks, United Nations agencies, and several national governments, many of whom have made the publication of their tenders and contracts in Development Business a mandatory requirement.^[24]

Criticism

The World Bank has long been criticized by non-governmental organizations, such as the indigenous rights group Survival International, and academics, including its former Chief Economist Joseph Stiglitz who is equally critical of the International Monetary Fund, the US Treasury Department, US and other developed country trade negotiators.^[25] Critics argue that the so-called free market reform policies which the Bank advocates are often harmful to economic development if implemented badly, too quickly ("shock therapy"), in the wrong sequence or in weak, uncompetitive economies.^[25][26]
In Masters of Illusion: The World Bank and the Poverty of Nations (1996), Catherine Caufield argued that the assumptions and structure of the World Bank harms southern nations. Caufield criticized its formulaic recipes of "development". To the World Bank, different nations and regions are indistinguishable and ready to receive the "uniform remedy of development". She argued that to attain even modest success, Western practices are adopted and traditional economic structures and values abandoned. A second assumption is that poor countries cannot modernize without money and advice from abroad.
A number of intellectuals in developing countries have argued that the World Bank is deeply implicated in contemporary modes of donor and NGO imperialism, and that its intellectual contributions function to blame the poor for their condition.^[27]
One of the strongest criticisms of the World Bank has been the way in which it is governed. While the World Bank represents 186 countries, it is run by a small number of economically powerful countries. These countries choose the leadership and senior management of the World Bank, and so their interests dominate the bank.^[28]
The World Bank has dual roles that are contradictory: that of a political organization and that of a practical organization. As a political organization, the World Bank must meet the demands of donor and borrowing governments, private capital markets, and other international organizations. As an action-oriented organization, it must be neutral, specializing in development aid, technical assistance, and loans. The World Bank's obligations to donor countries and private capital markets have caused it to adopt policies which dictate that poverty is best alleviated by the implementation of "market" policies.^[29]
In the 1990s, the World Bank and the IMF forged the Washington Consensus, policies which included deregulation and liberalization of markets, privatization and the downscaling of government. Though the Washington Consensus was conceived as a policy that would best promote development, it was criticized for ignoring equity, employment and how reforms like privatization were carried out. Many now agree^{[citation needed]} that the Washington Consensus placed too much emphasis on the growth of GDP, and not enough on the permanence of growth or on whether growth contributed to better living standards.^[30]
Some analysis shows that the World Bank has increased poverty and been detrimental to the environment, public health and cultural diversity.^[31] Some critics also claim that the World Bank has consistently pushed a neoliberal agenda, imposing policies on developing countries which have been damaging, destructive and anti-developmental.^[32][33]
It has also been suggested that the World Bank is an instrument for the promotion of US or Western interests in certain regions of the world. Even South American nations have established the Bank of the South in order to reduce US influence in the region.^[34] Criticism of the bank, that the President is always a citizen of the United States, nominated by the President of the United States (though subject to the "approval" of the other member countries). There have been accusations that the decision-making structure is undemocratic as the US has a veto on some constitutional decisions with just over 16% of the shares in the bank;^[35] Decisions can only be passed with votes from countries whose shares total more than 85% of the bank's shares.^[36] A further criticism concerns internal management and the manner in which the World Bank is said to lack accountability.^[37]
Criticism of the World Bank often takes the form of protesting as seen in recent events such as the World Bank Oslo 2002 Protests,^[38] the October Rebellion,^[39] and the Battle of Seattle.^[40] Such demonstrations have occurred all over the world, even amongst the Brazilian Kayapo people.^[41]
In 2008, a World Bank report which found that biofuels had driven food prices up 75% was not published. Officials confided that they believed it was suppressed to avoid embarrassing the then-President of the United States, George W. Bush.^[42]
Although controversial and far from proven, there is criticism that World Bank and IMF are used as a means to fulfill business (interests of large corporations to enter the natural resource markets of the country and obtain the legal guarantees that it can stay there) or political needs of the main IMF donors (mostly USA), that were previously historically obtained by more direct activity - war, economic blockade, espionage. See for example Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.

Knowledge production

The World Bank has been criticised for the manner in which it engages in "the production, accumulation, circulation and functioning" of knowledge. The Bank's production of knowledge has become integral to the funding and justification of large capital projects. The Bank relies on "a growing network of translocal scientists, technocrats, NGOs, and empowered citizens to help generate data and construct discursive strategies".^[43] Its capacity to produce authoritative knowledge is a response to intense scrutiny of Bank projects resulting from the successes of growing anti-Bank and alternative-development movements.^[44] "Development has relied exclusively on one knowledge system, namely, the modern Western one. The dominance of this knowledge system has dictated the marginalization and disqualification of non-Western knowledge systems".^[45] It has been remarked that in these alternative knowledge systems, researchers and activists might find alternative rationales to guide interventionist action away from Western (Bank-produced) ways of thinking. Knowledge production has become an asset to the Bank, and "it is generated and used in highly strategic ways"^[44] to provide justifications for development.

Structural adjustment

The effect of structural adjustment policies on poor countries has been one of the most significant criticisms of the World Bank. The 1979 energy crisis plunged many countries into economic crises.^[46] The World Bank responded with structural adjustment loans which distributed aid to struggling countries while enforcing policy changes in order to reduce inflation and fiscal imbalance. Some of these policies included encouraging production, investment and labour-intensive manufacturing, changing real exchange rates and altering the distribution of government resources.^[47] Structural adjustment policies were most effective in countries with an institutional framework that allowed these policies to be implemented easily.^[47] For some countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, economic growth regressed and inflation worsened.^[47] The alleviation of poverty was not a goal of structural adjustment loans, and the circumstances of the poor often worsened, due to a reduction in social spending and an increase in the price of food, as subsidies were lifted.^[47]
By the late 1980s, international organizations began to admit that structural adjustment policies were worsening life for the world's poor. The World Bank changed structural adjustment loans, allowing for social spending to be maintained, and encouraging a slower change to policies such as transfer of subsidies and price rises.^[48] In 1999, the World Bank and the IMF introduced the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper approach to replace structural adjustment loans.^[49] The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper approach has been interpreted as an extension of structural adjustment policies as it continues to reinforce and legitimize global inequities.^[50] Neither approach has addressed the inherent flaws within the global economy that contribute to economic and social inequities within developing countries.^[51] By reinforcing the relationship between lending and client states, many believe that the World Bank has usurped indebted countries' power to determine their own economic policy.^[52]

Water privatization

Sociologist Michael Goldman has argued that "Industry analysts predict that private water will soon be a capitalized market as precious, and as war-provoking, as oil".^[53] Goldman says "These days, an indebted country cannot borrow capital from the World Bank or IMF without a domestic water privatization policy as a precondition".^[53] The Bank is utilizing "the 'Washington Consensus' model of "development" to promote water privatization. Following this model, the World Bank is forcing many countries to commodify their water resources, rather than using their expertise in the public sector to acknowledge water as a universal human right and an essential public service".^[53] The push for water privatization development plays upon "the shocking tragedy that much of the world lacks affordable clean water". This image creates "new opportunities in development, though it may have little to do with ultimately quenching" the needs of impoverished countries. "The problem of water scarcity for the world's poor has been analyzed by the World Bank as one in which the public sector has failed to deliver, and has therefore prevented development from "taking off", and the economy from modernizing. If the state cannot deliver something as basic as water and sanitation, the argument goes, it is a strong indication of a general failure of public-sector capacity".^[53] However, "with the sale or lease of a public good comes more than simply a privatized service; alongside it comes a wide set of postcolonial institutional forces that intervene in state-citizen relations and North-South dynamics".^[54] One notable example is the privatization of water forced upon Bolivians by the World Bank which led to multiple protests including the 2000 Cochabamba protests.

Sovereign immunity

Despite claiming goals of "good governance and anti-corruption″^[55] the World Bank requires sovereign immunity from countries it deals with.^{[56][57][58][59][60]} Sovereign immunity waives a holder from all legal liability for their actions. It is proposed that this immunity from responsibility is a "shield which [The World Bank] wants resort to, for escaping accountability and security by the people."^[56] As the United States has veto power, it can prevent the World Bank from taking action against its interests.^[56]

Environmental strategy

The World Bank's ongoing work to develop a strategy on climate change and environmental threats has been criticized for (i) lacking of a proper overall vision and purpose, (ii) having a limited focus on its own role in global and regional governance, and (iii) having limited recognition of specific regional issues, e.g. issues of rights to food and land, and sustainable land use. Critics have also commented that only 1% of the World Bank's lending goes to the environmental sector, narrowly defined.^[61]
Environmentalists are urging the Bank to stop worldwide support for the development of coal plants and other large emitters of greenhouse gas and operations that are proven to pollute or damage the environment. For instance, protesters in South Africa and abroad have criticized the 2010 decision of the World Bank's approval for a $3.75 billion loan to build the world's 4th largest coal-fired power plant in South Africa. The plant will greatly increase the demand for coal mining and corresponding harmful environmental effects of coal.^[62]

World Trade Organization

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"WTO" redirects here. For other uses, see WTO (disambiguation).

World Trade Organization (English) Organisation mondiale du commerce (French) Organización Mundial del Comercio (Spanish)
WTO founder members (January 1, 1995) WTO subsequent members
Formation	January 1, 1995
Headquarters	Centre William Rappard, Geneva, Switzerland
Membership	153 member states
Official languages	English, French, Spanish[1]
Director-General	Pascal Lamy
Budget	189 million Swiss francs (approx. 182 million USD) in 2009.[2]
Staff	625[3]
Website	www.wto.int

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an organization that intends to supervise and liberalize international trade. The organization officially commenced on January 1, 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which commenced in 1948. The organization deals with regulation of trade between participating countries; it provides a framework for negotiating and formalizing trade agreements, and a dispute resolution process aimed at enforcing participants' adherence to WTO agreements which are signed by representatives of member governments and ratified by their parliaments.^[4][5] Most of the issues that the WTO focuses on derive from previous trade negotiations, especially from the Uruguay Round (1986-1994).
The organization is currently endeavoring to persist with a trade negotiation called the Doha Development Agenda (or Doha Round), which was launched in 2001 to enhance equitable participation of poorer countries which represent a majority of the world's population. However, the negotiation has been dogged by "disagreement between exporters of agricultural bulk commodities and countries with large numbers of subsistence farmers on the precise terms of a 'special safeguard measure' to protect farmers from surges in imports. At this time, the future of the Doha Round is uncertain."^[6]
The WTO has 153 members,^[7] representing more than 97% of total world trade^[8] and 30 observers, most seeking membership. The WTO is governed by a ministerial conference, meeting every two years; a general council, which implements the conference's policy decisions and is responsible for day-to-day administration; and a director-general, who is appointed by the ministerial conference. The WTO's headquarters is at the Centre William Rappard, Geneva, Switzerland.

History

See also: Timeline of the World Trade Organization

See also: International Trade Organization

Harry White (l) and John Maynard Keynes at the Bretton Woods Conference — Both economists had been strong advocates of a liberal international trade environment, and recommended the establishment of three institutions: the IMF (fiscal and monetary issues), the World Bank (financial and structural issues), and the ITO (international economic cooperation).^[9]

The WTO's predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), was established after World War II in the wake of other new multilateral institutions dedicated to international economic cooperation — notably the Bretton Woods institutions known as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. A comparable international institution for trade, named the International Trade Organization was successfully negotiated. The ITO was to be a United Nations specialized agency and would address not only trade barriers but other issues indirectly related to trade, including employment, investment, restrictive business practices, and commodity agreements. But the ITO treaty was not approved by the U.S. and a few other signatories and never went into effect.^[10][11][12]
In the absence of an international organization for trade, the GATT would over the years "transform itself" into a de facto international organization.^[13]

GATT rounds of negotiations

See also: General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

The GATT was the only multilateral instrument governing international trade from 1945 until the WTO was established in 1995.^[14] Despite attempts in the mid 1950s and 1960s to create some form of institutional mechanism for international trade, the GATT continued to operate for almost half a century as a semi-institutionalized multilateral treaty regime on a provisional basis.^[15]

From Genève to Tokyo

Seven rounds of negotiations occurred under the GATT. The first real GATT trade rounds concentrated on further reducing tariffs. Then, the Kennedy Round in the mid-sixties brought about a GATT anti-dumping Agreement and a section on development. The Tokyo Round during the seventies was the first major attempt to tackle trade barriers that do not take the form of tariffs, and to improve the system, adopting a series of agreements on non-tariff barriers, which in some cases interpreted existing GATT rules, and in others broke entirely new ground. Because these plurilateral agreements were not accepted by the full GATT membership, they were often informally called "codes". Several of these codes were amended in the Uruguay Round, and turned into multilateral commitments accepted by all WTO members. Only four remained plurilateral (those on government procurement, bovine meat, civil aircraft and dairy products), but in 1997 WTO members agreed to terminate the bovine meat and dairy agreements, leaving only two.^[14]

Uruguay Round

During the Doha Round, the US government blamed Brazil and India for being inflexible, and the EU for impeding agricultural imports.^[16] The President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, responded to the criticisms by arguing that progress would only be achieved if the richest countries (especially the US and countries in the EU) make deeper cuts in their agricultural subsidies, and further open their markets for agricultural goods.^[17]

Main article: Uruguay Round

Well before GATT's 40th anniversary, its members concluded that the GATT system was straining to adapt to a new globalizing world economy.^[18][19] In response to the problems identified in the 1982 Ministerial Declaration (structural deficiencies, spill-over impacts of certain countries' policies on world trade GATT could not manage etc.), the eighth GATT round — known as the Uruguay Round — was launched in September 1986, in Punta del Este, Uruguay.^[18]
It was the biggest negotiating mandate on trade ever agreed: the talks were going to extend the trading system into several new areas, notably trade in services and intellectual property, and to reform trade in the sensitive sectors of agriculture and textiles; all the original GATT articles were up for review.^[19] The Final Act concluding the Uruguay Round and officially establishing the WTO regime was signed during the April 1994 ministerial meeting at Marrakesh, Morocco, and hence is known as the Marrakesh Agreement.^[20]
The GATT still exists as the WTO's umbrella treaty for trade in goods, updated as a result of the Uruguay Round negotiations (a distinction is made between GATT 1994, the updated parts of GATT, and GATT 1947, the original agreement which is still the heart of GATT 1994).^[18] GATT 1994 is not however the only legally binding agreement included via the Final Act at Marrakesh; a long list of about 60 agreements, annexes, decisions and understandings was adopted. The agreements fall into a structure with six main parts:

• The Agreement Establishing the WTO
• Goods and investment — the Multilateral Agreements on Trade in Goods including the GATT 1994 and the Trade Related Investment Measures
• Services — the General Agreement on Trade in Services
• Intellectual property — the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)
• Dispute settlement (DSU)
• Reviews of governments' trade policies (TPRM)^[21]

Ministerial conferences

The topmost decision-making body of the WTO is the Ministerial Conference, which usually meets every two years. It brings together all members of the WTO, all of which are countries or customs unions. The Ministerial Conference can take decisions on all matters under any of the multilateral trade agreements. The inaugural ministerial conference was held in Singapore in 1996. Disagreements between largely developed and developing economies emerged during this conference over four issues initiated by this conference, which led to them being collectively referred to as the "Singapore issues". The second ministerial conference was held in Geneva in Switzerland. The third conference in Seattle, Washington ended in failure, with massive demonstrations and police and National Guard crowd control efforts drawing worldwide attention. The fourth ministerial conference was held in Doha in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar. The Doha Development Round was launched at the conference. The conference also approved the joining of China, which became the 143rd member to join. The fifth ministerial conference was held in Cancún, Mexico, aiming at forging agreement on the Doha round. An alliance of 22 southern states, the G20 developing nations (led by India, China^[22], Brazil, ASEAN led by the Philippines), resisted demands from the North for agreements on the so-called "Singapore issues" and called for an end to agricultural subsidies within the EU and the US. The talks broke down without progress.
The sixth WTO ministerial conference was held in Hong Kong from 13-18 December 2005. It was considered vital if the four-year-old Doha Development Agenda negotiations were to move forward sufficiently to conclude the round in 2006. In this meeting, countries agreed to phase out all their agricultural export subsidies by the end of 2013, and terminate any cotton export subsidies by the end of 2006. Further concessions to developing countries included an agreement to introduce duty free, tariff free access for goods from the Least Developed Countries, following the Everything but Arms initiative of the European Union — but with up to 3% of tariff lines exempted. Other major issues were left for further negotiation to be completed by the end of 2010. The WTO General Council, on 26 May 2009, agreed to hold a seventh WTO ministerial conference session in Geneva from 30 November-3 December 2009. A statement by chairman Amb. Mario Matus acknowledged that the prime purpose was to remedy a breach of protocol requiring two-yearly "regular" meetings, which had lapsed with the Doha Round failure in 2005, and that the "scaled-down" meeting would not be a negotiating session, but "emphasis will be on transparency and open discussion rather than on small group processes and informal negotiating structures". The general theme for discussion was "The WTO, the Multilateral Trading System and the Current Global Economic Environment"^[23]

Doha Round

Main article: Doha Round

The Doha Development Round started in 2001 and continues today.

The WTO launched the current round of negotiations, the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) or Doha Round, at the fourth ministerial conference in Doha, Qatar in November 2001. The Doha round was to be an ambitious effort to make globalization more inclusive and help the world's poor, particularly by slashing barriers and subsidies in farming.^[24] The initial agenda comprised both further trade liberalization and new rule-making, underpinned by commitments to strengthen substantial assistance to developing countries.^[25]
The negotiations have been highly contentious and agreement has not been reached, despite the intense negotiations at several ministerial conferences and at other sessions. Disagreements still continue over several key areas including agriculture subsidies.^[26]

GATT and WTO trade rounds[27]
Name	Start	Duration	Countries	Subjects covered	Achievements
Geneva	April 1947	7 months	23	Tariffs	Signing of GATT, 45,000 tariff concessions affecting $10 billion of trade
Annecy	April 1949	5 months	13	Tariffs	Countries exchanged some 5,000 tariff concessions
Torquay	September 1950	8 months	38	Tariffs	Countries exchanged some 8,700 tariff concessions, cutting the 1948 tariff levels by 25%
Geneva II	January 1956	5 months	26	Tariffs, admission of Japan	$2.5 billion in tariff reductions
Dillon	September 1960	11 months	26	Tariffs	Tariff concessions worth $4.9 billion of world trade
Kennedy	May 1964	37 months	62	Tariffs, Anti-dumping	Tariff concessions worth $40 billion of world trade
Tokyo	September 1973	74 months	102	Tariffs, non-tariff measures, "framework" agreements	Tariff reductions worth more than $300 billion dollars achieved
Uruguay	September 1986	87 months	123	Tariffs, non-tariff measures, rules, services, intellectual property, dispute settlement, textiles, agriculture, creation of WTO, etc	The round led to the creation of WTO, and extended the range of trade negotiations, leading to major reductions in tariffs (about 40%) and agricultural subsidies, an agreement to allow full access for textiles and clothing from developing countries, and an extension of intellectual property rights.
Doha	November 2001	?	141	Tariffs, non-tariff measures, agriculture, labor standards, environment, competition, investment, transparency, patents etc	The round is not yet concluded.

Functions

Among the various functions of the WTO, these are regarded by analysts as the most important:

• It oversees the implementation, administration and operation of the covered agreements.^[28][29]
• It provides a forum for negotiations and for settling disputes.^[30][31]

Additionally, it is the WTO's duty to review and propagate the national trade policies, and to ensure the coherence and transparency of trade policies through surveillance in global economic policy-making.^[29][31] Another priority of the WTO is the assistance of developing, least-developed and low-income countries in transition to adjust to WTO rules and disciplines through technical cooperation and training.^[32]
The WTO is also a center of economic research and analysis: regular assessments of the global trade picture in its annual publications and research reports on specific topics are produced by the organization.^[33] Finally, the WTO cooperates closely with the two other components of the Bretton Woods system, the IMF and the World Bank.^[30]

Principles of the trading system

The WTO establishes a framework for trade policies; it does not define or specify outcomes. That is, it is concerned with setting the rules of the trade policy games.^[34] Five principles are of particular importance in understanding both the pre-1994 GATT and the WTO:

1. Non-Discrimination. It has two major components: the most favoured nation (MFN) rule, and the national treatment policy. Both are embedded in the main WTO rules on goods, services, and intellectual property, but their precise scope and nature differ across these areas. The MFN rule requires that a WTO member must apply the same conditions on all trade with other WTO members, i.e. a WTO member has to grant the most favorable conditions under which it allows trade in a certain product type to all other WTO members.^[34] "Grant someone a special favour and you have to do the same for all other WTO members."^[35] National treatment means that imported goods should be treated no less favorably than domestically produced goods (at least after the foreign goods have entered the market) and was introduced to tackle non-tariff barriers to trade (e.g. technical standards, security standards et al. discriminating against imported goods).^[34]
2. Reciprocity. It reflects both a desire to limit the scope of free-riding that may arise because of the MFN rule, and a desire to obtain better access to foreign markets. A related point is that for a nation to negotiate, it is necessary that the gain from doing so be greater than the gain available from unilateral liberalization; reciprocal concessions intend to ensure that such gains will materialise.^[36]
3. Binding and enforceable commitments. The tariff commitments made by WTO members in a multilateral trade negotiation and on accession are enumerated in a schedule (list) of concessions. These schedules establish "ceiling bindings": a country can change its bindings, but only after negotiating with its trading partners, which could mean compensating them for loss of trade. If satisfaction is not obtained, the complaining country may invoke the WTO dispute settlement procedures.^[35][36]
4. Transparency. The WTO members are required to publish their trade regulations, to maintain institutions allowing for the review of administrative decisions affecting trade, to respond to requests for information by other members, and to notify changes in trade policies to the WTO. These internal transparency requirements are supplemented and facilitated by periodic country-specific reports (trade policy reviews) through the Trade Policy Review Mechanism (TPRM).^[37] The WTO system tries also to improve predictability and stability, discouraging the use of quotas and other measures used to set limits on quantities of imports.^[35]
5. Safety valves. In specific circumstances, governments are able to restrict trade. There are three types of provisions in this direction: articles allowing for the use of trade measures to attain noneconomic objectives; articles aimed at ensuring "fair competition"; and provisions permitting intervention in trade for economic reasons.^[37] Exceptions to the MFN principle also allow for preferential treatment of developing countries, regional free trade areas and customs unions.^{[citation needed]}

Organizational structure

The General Council has multiple bodies which oversee committees in different areas, re the following:

Council for Trade in Goods

There are 11 committees under the jurisdiction of the Goods Council each with a specific task. All members of the WTO participate in the committees. The Textiles Monitoring Body is separate from the other committees but still under the jurisdiction of Goods Council. The body has its own chairman and only 10 members. The body also has several groups relating to textiles.^[38]

Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights

Information on intellectual property in the WTO, news and official records of the activities of the TRIPS Council, and details of the WTO’s work with other international organizations in the field.^[39]

Council for Trade in Services

The Council for Trade in Services operates under the guidance of the General Council and is responsible for overseeing the functioning of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). It is open to all WTO members, and can create subsidiary bodies as required.^[40]

Trade Negotiations Committee

The Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC) is the committee that deals with the current trade talks round. The chair is WTO’s director-general. The committee is currently tasked with the Doha Development Round.^[41]

The Service Council has three subsidiary bodies: financial services, domestic regulations, GATS rules and specific commitments.^[38] The General council has several different committees, working groups, and working parties.^[42] There are committees on the following: Trade and Environment; Trade and Development (Subcommittee on Least-Developed Countries); Regional Trade Agreements; Balance of Payments Restrictions; and Budget, Finance and Administration. There are working parties on the following: Accession. There are working groups on the following: Trade, debt and finance; and Trade and technology transfer.

Voting system

The WTO operates on a one country, one vote system, but actual votes have never been taken. Decision making is generally by consensus, and relative market size is the primary source of bargaining power. The advantage of consensus decision-making is that it encourages efforts to find the most widely acceptable decision. Main disadvantages include large time requirements and many rounds of negotiation to develop a consensus decision, and the tendency for final agreements to use ambiguous language on contentious points that makes future interpretation of treaties difficult.^{[citation needed]}
In reality, WTO negotiations proceed not by consensus of all members, but by a process of informal negotiations between small groups of countries. Such negotiations are often called "Green Room" negotiations (after the colour of the WTO Director-General's Office in Geneva), or "Mini-Ministerials", when they occur in other countries. These processes have been regularly criticised by many of the WTO's developing country members which are often totally excluded from the negotiations..^{[citation needed]}
Richard Harold Steinberg (2002) argues that although the WTO's consensus governance model provides law-based initial bargaining, trading rounds close through power-based bargaining favouring Europe and the U.S., and may not lead to Pareto improvement.^[43]

Dispute settlement

Main article: Dispute settlement in the WTO

In 1994, the WTO members agreed on the Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes (DSU) annexed to the "Final Act" signed in Marrakesh in 1994.^[44] Dispute settlement is regarded by the WTO as the central pillar of the multilateral trading system, and as a "unique contribution to the stability of the global economy".^[45] WTO members have agreed that, if they believe fellow-members are violating trade rules, they will use the multilateral system of settling disputes instead of taking action unilaterally.^[46]
The operation of the WTO dispute settlement process involves the DSB panels, the Appellate Body, the WTO Secretariat, arbitrators, independent experts and several specialized institutions.^[47] Bodies involved in the dispute settlement process, World Trade Organization. Several commentators have pointed out the practical difficulty in establishing legal elements required to bring trade remedy claim under WTO law.^[48]

Accession and membership

Main article: WTO accession and membership

The process of becoming a WTO member is unique to each applicant country, and the terms of accession are dependent upon the country's stage of economic development and current trade regime.^[49] The process takes about five years, on average, but it can last more if the country is less than fully committed to the process or if political issues interfere.^[50] As is typical of WTO procedures, an offer of accession is only given once consensus is reached among interested parties.^[51]

Accession process

Status of WTO negotiations:

 members (including dual-representation with the European Union)

Draft Working Party Report or Factual Summary adopted

Goods and/or Services offers submitted

Memorandum on Foreign Trade Regime submitted

 observer, negotiations to start later or no Memorandum on FTR submitted

frozen procedures or no negotiations in the last 3 years

no official interaction with the WTO

A country wishing to accede to the WTO submits an application to the General Council, and has to describe all aspects of its trade and economic policies that have a bearing on WTO agreements.^[52] The application is submitted to the WTO in a memorandum which is examined by a working party open to all interested WTO Members.^[51]
After all necessary background information has been acquired, the working party focuses on issues of discrepancy between the WTO rules and the applicant's international and domestic trade policies and laws. The working party determines the terms and conditions of entry into the WTO for the applicant nation, and may consider transitional periods to allow countries some leeway in complying with the WTO rules.^[49]
The final phase of accession involves bilateral negotiations between the applicant nation and other working party members regarding the concessions and commitments on tariff levels and market access for goods and services. The new member's commitments are to apply equally to all WTO members under normal non-discrimination rules, even though they are negotiated bilaterally.^[52]
When the bilateral talks conclude, the working party sends to the general council or ministerial conference an accession package, which includes a summary of all the working party meetings, the Protocol of Accession (a draft membership treaty), and lists ("schedules") of the member-to-be's commitments. Once the general council or ministerial conference approves of the terms of accession, the applicant's parliament must ratify the Protocol of Accession before it can become a member.^[53]

Members and observers

The WTO has 153 members (almost all of the 123 nations participating in the Uruguay Round signed on at its foundation, and the rest had to get membership).^[54] The 27 states of the European Union are represented also as the European Communities. WTO members do not have to be full sovereign nation-members. Instead, they must be a customs territory with full autonomy in the conduct of their external commercial relations. Thus Hong Kong (as "Hong Kong, China" since 1997) became a GATT contracting party, and the Republic of China (ROC) (commonly known as Taiwan, whose sovereignty has been disputed by the People's Republic of China or PRC) acceded to the WTO in 2002 under the name of "Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu" (Chinese Taipei).^[55]
A number of non-members (30) are observers at WTO proceedings and are currently negotiating their membership. As observers, Iran, Iraq and Russia are not yet members. Russia is the biggest economy outside WTO and after the completion of Russia's accession, Iran would be the biggest economy outside the WTO.^[56] With the exception of the Holy See, observers must start accession negotiations within five years of becoming observers. Some international intergovernmental organizations are also granted observer status to WTO bodies.^[57] 14 states and 2 territories so far have no official interaction with the WTO.

Agreements

Main article: Uruguay Round

The WTO oversees about 60 different agreements which have the status of international legal texts. Member countries must sign and ratify all WTO agreements on accession.^[58] A discussion of some of the most important agreements follows. The Agreement on Agriculture came into effect with the establishment of the WTO at the beginning of 1995. The AoA has three central concepts, or "pillars": domestic support, market access and export subsidies. The General Agreement on Trade in Services was created to extend the multilateral trading system to service sector, in the same way the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) provides such a system for merchandise trade. The Agreement entered into force in January 1995. The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights sets down minimum standards for many forms of intellectual property (IP) regulation. It was negotiated at the end of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1994.
The Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures — also known as the SPS Agreement was negotiated during the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and entered into force with the establishment of the WTO at the beginning of 1995. Under the SPS agreement, the WTO sets constraints on members' policies relating to food safety (bacterial contaminants, pesticides, inspection and labelling) as well as animal and plant health (imported pests and diseases). The Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade is an international treaty of the World Trade Organization. It was negotiated during the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and entered into force with the establishment of the WTO at the end of 1994. The object ensures that technical negotiations and standards, as well as testing and certification procedures, do not create unnecessary obstacles to trade".^[59] The Agreement on Customs Valuation, formally known as the Agreement on Implementation of Article VII of GATT, prescribes methods of customs valuation that Members are to follow. Chiefly, it adopts the "transaction value" approach.

Effectiveness

Main article: Criticism of the World Trade Organization

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Directors-General

The Directors-General of the WTO have been: ^[60]

• Pascal Lamy, 2005-
• Supachai Panitchpakdi, 2002-2005
• Mike Moore, 1999–2002
• Renato Ruggiero, 1995–1999
• Peter Sutherland, 1995

The Directors-General of the precursor organization, GATT, were:

• Peter Sutherland, 1993-1995
• Arthur Dunkel, 1980–1993
• Olivier Long. 1968–1980
• Eric Wyndham White, 1948–1968

See also

• Agreement on Trade Related Investment Measures (TRIMS)
• Anti-Globalization
• International Trade Centre
• Centre William Rappard
• North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
• Non-paper
• Safeguard
• Subsidy
• Information Technology Agreement
• Swiss Formula
• Trade bloc
• Washington Consensus
• World Trade Report
• WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999 protest activity
• Global administrative law
• Globality
• Labour Standards in the World Trade Organisation
• List of countries not in the WTO

Notes

1. ^ General Information on Recruitment in the World Trade Organization, World Trade Organization
2. ^ "WTO Secretariat budget for 2008". World Trade Organization. http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/secre_e/budget08_e.htm. Retrieved 2008-08-25. 
3. ^ Overview of the WTO Secretariat All WTO staff are based in Geneva.
4. ^ Understanding the WTO - what is the World Trade Organization?, World Trade Organization
5. ^ "World Trade Organization". Encyclopaedia Britannica. 
6. ^ European Commission The Doha Round
7. ^ Members and Observers WTO official site
8. ^ The WTO in Brief 2 WTO official site
9. ^ A.E. Eckes Jr., US Trade History, 73
   * A. Smithies, Reflections on the Work of Keynes, 578-601
   * N. Warren, Internet and Globalization, 193
10. ^ P. van den Bossche, The Law and Policy of the World Trade Organization, 80
11. ^ Palmeter-Mavroidis, Dispute Settlement, 2
12. ^ Fergusson, Ian F. (9 May 2007). "The World Trade Organization: Background and Issues" (PDF). Congressional Research Service. p. 4. http://www.nationalaglawcenter.org/assets/crs/98-928.pdf. Retrieved 2008-08-15. 
13. ^ It was contemplated that the GATT would be applied for several years until the ITO came into force. However, since the ITO was never brought into being, the GATT gradually became the focus for international governmental cooperation on trade matters (P. van den Bossche, The Law and Policy of the World Trade Organization, 81; J.H. Jackson, Managing the Trading System, 134).
14. ^ ^{a b} The GATT Years: from Havana to Marrakesh, World Trade Organization
15. ^ M.E. Footer, Analysis of the World Trade Organization, 17
16. ^ B.S. Klapper, With a "Short Window"
17. ^ Lula, Time to Get Serious about Agricultural Subsidies
18. ^ ^{a b c} P. Gallagher, The First Ten Years of the WTO, 4
19. ^ ^{a b} The Uruguay Round, World Trade Organization
20. ^ "legal texts - Marrakesh agreement". WTO. http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/04-wto_e.htm. Retrieved 2010-05-30. 
21. ^ Overview: a Navigational Guide, World Trade Organization. For the complete list of "The Uruguay Round Agreements", see WTO legal texts, World Trade Organization, and Uruguay Round Agreements, Understandings, Decisions and Declarations, WorldTradeLaw.net
22. ^ "Five Years of China WTO Membership. EU and US Perspectives about China's Compliance with Transparency Commitments and the Transitional Review Mechanism". Papers.ssrn.com. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=916768. Retrieved 2010-05-30. 
23. ^ WTO to hold 7th Ministerial Conference on 30 November-2 December 2009 WTO official website
24. ^ "In the twilight of Doha". The Economist (The Economist): 65. July 27, 2006. http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7218551 
25. ^ The Doha Development Agenda, European Commission
26. ^ Fergusson, Ian F. (2008-01-18). "World Trade Organization Negotiations: The Doha Development Agenda" (PDF). Congressional Research Service. http://www.nationalaglawcenter.org/assets/crs/RL32060.pdf. Retrieved 2008-07-26. 
27. ^ a)The GATT years: from Havana to Marrakesh, World Trade Organization
    b)Timeline: World Trade Organization – A chronology of key events, BBC News
    c)Brakman-Garretsen-Marrewijk-Witteloostuijn, Nations and Firms in the Global Economy, Chapter 10: Trade and Capital Restriction
28. ^ Functions of the WTO, IISD
29. ^ ^{a b} Main Functions, World Trade Organization
30. ^ ^{a b} A Bredimas, International Economic Law, II, 17
31. ^ ^{a b} C. Deere, Decision-making in the WTO: Medieval or Up-to-Date?
32. ^ WTO Assistance for Developing Countries, World Trade Organization
33. ^ Economic research and analysis, World Trade Organization
34. ^ ^{a b c} B. Hoekman, The WTO: Functions and Basic Principles, 42
35. ^ ^{a b c} Principles of the Trading System, World Trade Organization
36. ^ ^{a b} B. Hoekman, The WTO: Functions and Basic Principles, 43
37. ^ ^{a b} B. Hoekman, The WTO: Functions and Basic Principles, 44
38. ^ ^{a b} "Fourth level: down to the nitty-gritty". World Trade Organization. http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/org1_e.htm#fourth. Retrieved 2008-08-18. 
39. ^ "Intellectual property - overview of TRIPS Agreement". Wto.org. 1994-04-15. http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/intel2_e.htm. Retrieved 2010-05-30. 
40. ^ "The Services Council, its Committees and other subsidiary bodies". World Trade Organization. http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/serv_e/s_coun_e.htm. Retrieved 2008-08-14. 
41. ^ "The Trade Negotiations Committee". World Trade Organization. http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dda_e/tnc_e.htm. Retrieved 2008-08-14. 
42. ^ "WTO organization chart". World Trade Organization. http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/org2_e.htm. Retrieved 2008-08-14. 
43. ^ Steinberg, Richard H. "In the Shadow of Law or Power? Consensus-based Bargaining and Outcomes in the GATT/WTO." International Organization. Spring 2002. pp. 339-374.
44. ^ Stewart-Dawyer, The WTO Dispute Settlement System, 7
45. ^ S. Panitchpakdi, The WTO at ten, 8.
46. ^ Settling Disputes:a Unique Contribution, World Trade Organization
47. ^ [http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/disp_settlement_cbt_e/c3s1p1_e.htm WTO
48. ^ "Ahn&Moon, Alternative Approach to Causation Analysis in Trade Remedy Investigations, 44 Journal of World Trade 1032 (2010)". http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1601531. Retrieved 5 October 2010. 
49. ^ ^{a b} Accessions Summary, Center for International Development
50. ^ The shortest accession negotiation was that of the Kyrgyz Republic, while the longest was that of the People's Republic of China (P. Farah, Five Years of China's WTO Membership, 263-304). Russia, having first applied to join GATT in 1993, is still in negotiations for membership. Recently, it secured a bilateral trade agreement with the EU and US (Accessions: Russian Federation, World Trade Organization; Factsheet on U.S. – Russia WTO Bilateral Market Access Agreement, Office of the United States Trade Representative; Russia - WTO: EU-Russia Deal Brings Russia a Step Closer to WTO Membership, European Commission). Moldova and Georgia are the remaining two nations that Russia must make agreements with to enter the WTO (A. Aslund, Russia's WTO Accession; V. Novostei, USA OKs Russia’s Entry into WTO, Pravda. Ru).
51. ^ ^{a b} C. Michalopoulos, WTO Accession, 64
52. ^ ^{a b} Membership, Alliances and Bureaucracy, World Trade Organization
53. ^ How to Become a Member of the WTO, World Trade Organization
54. ^ For an updated list of WTO members, see Members and Observers, World Trade Organization
55. ^ J.H. Jackson, Sovereignty, 109
56. ^ "Letter of Demand". Iran Trade Law. 2005-05-26. http://www.irantradelaw.com/?page_id=5. Retrieved 2010-05-30. 
57. ^ International Intergovernmental Organizations Granted Observer Status to WTO Bodies, World Trade Organization
58. ^ "legal texts - the WTO agreements". WTO. http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/legal_e.htm. Retrieved 2010-05-30. 
59. ^ "A Summary of the Final Act of the Uruguay Round". Wto.org. http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/ursum_e.htm#dAgreement. Retrieved 2010-05-30. 
60. ^ WTO

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