by ADRIENNE SMITH
World Bank logo covered with protest signs: Stop Racism.
The effort to abolish racial discrimination within the World Bank largely depends on the whims of its president and his perception of what is good enough for blacks. Adrienne Smith argues that after more than three decades of pledges and reaffirmed promises to end discrimination the Bank’s reforms have failed
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In keeping with the ‘good enough governance’ principles the World Bank acknowledges the existence of systemic and deep-rooted problem with respect to racial equality, but argues that for a host of reasons it must be addressed as a long-term strategy rather than as a short-term reform agenda. One explanation often given by Bank managers is that there is a shortage of qualified blacks. In 1978, then President Robert McNamara mentioned lack of qualified Sub-Saharan Africans as one of the reasons for under-representation of blacks in the Bank’s management cohort, according to an op-ed article in the Washington Post (November 10, 1978).
The Bank continues to use the same excuse for under-representation of African Americans 30 years later. According to a 2009 report by the Government Accountability Project (GAP), one of the Bank’s directors suggested that historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the US, such as Howard University, do not produce good quality graduates. The World Bank, the Director said, needs to help them upgrade their graduate programs as part of the Bank’s long term diversity goal. This is, of course, a lame excuse to say the least. The message the Bank is sending, however, is that there is not much the Bank can do in the short term, but to do what is good enough given the constraints.
Let us divide the Bank’s history into three periods to have a better handle of the issue – 1978 to 1997; 1998 to 2007; and 2007 to 2012.
1978 TO 1997
In November 1978, William Raspberry, A Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, wrote two consecutive op-ed articles in the Washington Post bringing to light the extent of lack of racial diversity in the Bank’s management cohort. He pointed, for example, “There was no black among the 160 division chiefs, the lowest management rank.” In 1979, African members of the Bank’s Board of Governors discussed the issue at the Bank’s Annual meeting in Belgrade and issued a request to address it. Nothing of substance happened for over a decade. In 1992, a World Bank report documented: “People of African heritage receive less favorable treatment than is the norm in the Bank, including recruitment at a grade lower than comparably qualified staff from other parts of the world, significantly lower average salary level, lower profile assignments and unusual difficulty getting assignment outside of Africa region.” This was a confirmation of what an earlier 1990 study found. A third study in 1997 reconfirmed what had been confirmed earlier: racial discrimination in the World Bank is systemic and the internal justice system is deficient.
On December 12, 1997, the Board met again to discuss the lingering problem, almost two decades after the Belgrade meeting. The meeting was organized after the above-noted 1997 report found that the Bank did not follow through with earlier recommendations. The Bank’s reaction, as presented in a 1998 official report, was: ‘Although past efforts have been less than fully effective, the Bank Group should be proud of its continued commitment to this issue.’ The 14 page report did not indicate what the ‘past efforts’ were. However, whatever the efforts were real or feigned they were good enough for the Bank to be proud of.
1998 TO 2007 (JAMES WOLFENSOHN’S PRESIDENCY)
In 1998, a World Bank report prepared by an internal Team for Racial Equality concluded the problem is far more entrenched and widespread than the 1997 report documented. In 1999, the US Congress commissioned the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to undertake a study of the access to legal redress provided to victims of racial and gender discrimination and sexual harassment. The GAO Report stated without qualification that the Bank’s internal justice system did not adequately protect grievants complaining of discrimination and harassment. It noted also that the justice system did not hold managers accountable, and employees often saw it as neither fair nor credible and this deterred them from using it.
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