World Bank Research Paper

WHAT IS THE WORLD BANK?

The World Bank is an International Financial Institution (IFI) that provides Financial, Technical and policy advice assistance to member countries in need of it. With 189 countries its membership is almost universal

According to their official website, https://www.worldbank.org , the World Bank is a ‘unique global partnership of 5 institutions working for sustainable development solutions that reduce poverty and build shared prosperity in developing countries’. The five institutions mentioned here are;

1. International Bank for Reconstruction and development (IBRD)

2. International Development Association (IDA)

3. International Financial Corporation (IFC)

4. Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), and

5. International

Bosshard says in his article entitled ‘The World Bank is bringing back big bad dams’ that the huge dams benefit large mining corporations while the poor populations are left without electricity or are forced to pay disproportionately high tariffs.

During the construction of the Kariba dam large tracts of land had to be cleared and people removed from their ancestral land to make way for Africa’s largest man-made water body. Whole eco-systems were destroyed and some species brought to near extinction. After 67 years the tribal people displaced to make room for the creation of the dam are still fighting for compensation from Zambia Electricity Supply Corporation (ZESCO). The irony is that the people most affected by the project do not even reap the benefits of the dam. The cheap electricity promised to the masses have not been forthcoming. The multinational mining corporations that consume most of the power generated from Kariba dam access it at lower rates than the domestic tariffs. Even at the higher tariffs the domestic consumer is subjected to hours of no power referred brought on by rationing of the power supplied to homes and small businesses so that the monstrosities

A project of this magnitude will always have an environmental impact, this is unavoidable, The Environmental Council of Zambia (ECZ) was established to do what are called Environmental Impact Assessments for projects such as these. Projects that have high impacts are abandoned or ways of mitigating such impacts. Had the ECZ been in existence then, the damage to the Zambezi valley would at least been mitigated. The villagers displaced should have been compensated to help them rebuild elsewhere. The domestic consumers who use very little of the power produced by the dam, should be better protected by their government which owns the power supply company. It is unethical to lay a higher tariff burden on the population, rather, the multinational mining companies should subsidise the domestic