THE World Bank said many developing countries have been hurt by Europe’s debt crisis and there is a need to put in place programs to cushion its impact on the poor.
The bank’s president, Robert Zoellick, told reporters on Wednesday that in many developing countries, stock markets have gone down, bond spreads have gone up and exports have dropped since August.
He said exports have slowed even in the Philippines, whose economy has been growing well.
Zoellick made the comments during a visit to a Manila slum community where he talked to beneficiaries of an anti-poverty program supported by the World Bank.
He will meet on Thursday with President Aquino to discuss government reforms to fight corruption and poverty.
But according to independent think tank IBON Foundation Inc., even after over five decades of policy advice and $14.7-billion loans from the World Bank, the Philippines remains poor in every sector of the economy.
In a statement on Wednesday, IBON said the conditional cash-transfer (CCT) program “continues the World Bank’s long history of flawed policy-making in the country and deodorizes the much-discredited globalization model.”
“In fact, the CCT program is a reaction to widespread poverty in the country caused by decades of uninterrupted economic liberalization promoted by the World Bank and other finance institutions. The domestic economy has been weakened by dozens of World Bank structural-adjustment programs resulting in jobless growth, record forced migration and chronic poverty,” it said.
IBON said the $405-million World Bank loan for the CCT program is its second largest out of some 250 development loans to the Philippines since 1957. IBON estimates that the Philippines will be repaying $500 million on the World Bank CCT loan.
The CCT is part of a country-assistance program and World Bank policy advice since 2009.
“These policies are packaged by the World Bank as drivers of development, but the country’s experience has proven that these only worsen poverty. Meanwhile, its poverty programs like the CCT aim to cover up the harsh effects caused by its bankrupt development model,” IBON said.
(With AP)
