What Is The World Bank?
Well as Keynes famously said they must have got the names of the world bank and the IMF mixed up. The world bank funds development projects and the IMF loans money to struggling nations. The world bank is an international organization with 187 countries as members. The function of the world bank is to loan money and provide assisstance with nations looking to construct large scale development projects. It was formed in the Bretton Woods agreement after world war two to aid with the reconstruction of a war torn Europe.
The Structure Of The World Bank
There are 5 Sections to the world bank:
1) The International Bank For Reconstruction And Development, IBRD.
2) International Finance Corporation, IFC.
3) International Development Association, IDA.
4) Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, MIGA.
5) International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes, ICSID.
What Does The World Bank Do?
The IBRD and IDA provide loans and grants to countries looking to undertake development projects or lacking access to sufficient credit/loans. Loans cover areas such as health and education, agriculture, rural development, environmental protection, infrastructure and governance.
The organization is demand by western free market theorists who are quite influential within the world bank, it promotes free trade and it likes to make nations it helps into large capitalist free markets. As much as people criticize the world bank, for being a "neo-colonialist" arm of the western world aiming to spread its economic structure and culture, it has helped international development substantially in its time.