By
Matthew
Russell Lee
IMF
/
World Bank,
April 19 -- As
Robert
Zoellick
leaves the
World Bank
for another
American, Jim
Yong Kim, he
says he wants
to show
restraint in
dictating the
transition,
and he leaves
it to the
press
to identify
failures in
his tenure.
Okay,
here's just
the most
recent: the
World
Bank's
inappopriate
promotion of
water
privatization
hurts the poor
the Bank
claims to be
helping. Click
here.
Inner
City Press, in
the front row
for Zoellick's
briefing which
was
notably more
lightly
attended than
that
of IMF chief
Christine
Lagarde,
wanted to ask
the obvious
water
privatization
and Sudan
questions.
But
World Bank
spokesman
Richard Mills
stuck to his
comfort zone,
calling on a
reporter from
Reuters (not
the
correspondent
who covers the
IMF) who'd
loudly said,
and in
advance, that
she
wouldn't be
writing about
the answer to
the question
she asked,
then
correspondents
from the
Washington
Post and the
Guardian. This
last
asked, any
failures? No,
Zoellick
answered, I
leave that to
you.
He also left
unanswered a
question about
growing global
protests,
including
Occupy Wall
Street.
Zoellick
simply
proceeded as
if the
question had
not been
asked.
To
his credit,
Zoellick twice
said that the
post-crisis
Basel rules
might
constrict
lending to
poor and
developing
countries, and
that the
retrenchment
of French
banks from
trade finance
was also
causing harm.
He cited
the US and
Indian Freedom
of Information
laws as a
model for the
bank, and
promoted an
upcoming event
on "social
accountability."
Watch this
site.
