A Lot of Noise from an Ex World Banker

Per Kurowski, a former Executive Director at the World Bank was kind enough to post a lot of interesting comments on a couple of our posts. I haven’t seen his book referred to by any World Bank bloggers- I wonder what might be the reason. I’ve collected some of them below;

World Bank and Dictators

“For a start it is not and cannot ever be the role of World Bank to take upon its shoulder the responsibility for fighting dictatorships, whenever and wherever they are. That responsibility has to be shared by many more, preferably all. There are thousands of way you can get rid of a dictator, including extravagant one as offering 5 million visas to all people in Turkmenistan so that they are all able to go and live elsewhere and the dictator dies of loneliness but, to serve a useful purpose, they should all first be able to answer the question of what to do after the dictator is gone? Build a nation? Outsource the government? Send them all to universities, so that they can be taxi drivers in New York?

It is a very delicate matter to get involved in trying to change other peoples or other countries life, and pure good intentions are not enough. That said and reading the description of the Father of the Turkmen People he sounds like a very insecure person with a tremendous inferiority complex and in need of asserting his importance anyway, anywhere, anytime, something that is frequently quite useful for profiling dictators in general. If this is right, one way to do it, a peaceful alternative, would be to rob from him all his mantles of respectability, laughing and scorning him out of power. Careful though, don’t confuse the target, you do not want to scorn the belief and the blind faith in their leader that many locals might already have developed. If this is the chosen strategy, it would then be clearly contra productive to have a technician from the World Bank go and have a serious talk with him…among technicians. By the way since so many governments keep themselves elevated only by means of the lot of hot air they inflate themselves with, we should not underestimate the risk of a catastrophic domino effect.
But, do not think for a moment that my comments are in jest. No, it is way too important for the world to find a mechanism to get rid of the rogues, in the name of that overriding sovereign right we have as citizens of a very small and interrelated planet. We cannot and should not allow for too many too infectious diseases to poison our planets future."

Fighting Poverty with the Espresso Book Machine

"This machine is best for that odd or old special book that it would be to expensive to have in the inventory. As you would have to ship the machine, the paper, the inks and what have you plus arrange for the university in Mozambique to duly pay the royalties to the author I seriously doubt it would work for our friend of Mozambique. But you know the saddest part of it all? That is that in his desperate plea for a book in microeconomics, he might actually get a really bad one. A book that got printed just because the author was the friend of someone, or in cahoots with someone. "

Don’t Worry, Everybody will get a chance to be rich

“Don’t Worry, Everybody will get a chance to be rich” YES!... And perhaps even the rich will get their chance of being a little bit poorer. Whatever, it is clear that we do not have the tools for measuring where we really want and should be heading.

For instance, the GNP figures, currently just the result of adding, could perhaps explain more if we also did some subtractions; like of the cost for consuming more than your world equitable share of energy; the cost of developing an energy addiction; and perhaps even the cost of the time wasted daily answering automated phone calls from computers that want to get more intimate with your family’s finances."

Budget Support – Another Passing Fad in the Development Community?

"I find absolutely nothing rhetoric about the need of country ownership but indeed much abusive and self-serving interpretations of what it really means and, foremost, on how its existence is evidenced. In a country where there exists a generalized commitment for taking the next step up the ladder of development, almost any help in any way will do some good. Where this national sense of responsibility and a real we want, we can, and we will do it attitude does not exist, almost any help, in any way, would do little good and could even be harmful. Now these are the facts, and their recognition is a must, even though of course that does not make the life of a developing institution any easier… but, then again why should their life be easy?"

Advice to Mr. Wolfowitz on Fighting Corruption

"In relation to the World Bank’s fight against corruption I have no doubts whatsoever that the most important first step it needs to take is to make perfectly clear what it cannot be expected to do. For the World Bank to help create the impression that certain risks of corruption are effectively taken cared off, would be collaborating and camouflaging for corruption.

For this I would recommend that all projects include in their documentation, a very simple one page Public Notice that lays out the most important risks of corruption in the operation, making clear what the World Bank is doing to diminish them but, much more importantly, what is not in their hands to do. That page should then surf transparently the web in order to enlist the civil civilians in the fight.

As an institution the World Bank is always well served by a good dose of humility and should always fight the corruptive arrogance of believing it can do it all on its own. The world needs, more than ever, a World Bank that needs the world."

Mr. Metaphor and the First Law of Petropolitics

Now go and read his book, Voice and Noise.