Fucking hell. Is @DavidMalpassWBG honestly pushing structural adjustment measures as a condition for World Bank covid-19 relief money?
worldbank.org/en/news/speech…
worldbank.org/en/news/speech…
@DavidMalpassWBG To add insult to injury, it's unclear if the $150B the World Bank is offering is actually new money.
Low-income countries are going to need two things urgently from the World Bank to confront the pandemic (neither of which is structural reform).
1. First and foremost, immediate finance to ramp up public health measures. Procuring test kits, PPE, ventilators, constructing ICU wards. All of this on a much bigger scale than the $6B in short-term health finance the WB is offering.
2. An economic rescue package that reaches poor people. Lacking broad social insurance systems, low-income countries will have to channel a lot of that through inefficient subsidies and bloated public works. So be it. Now is not to the time to let efficiency reforms delay action.
For an idea of what the Bank could be doing on point 1, if Malpass was serious about action, see this from my friend @arvindsubraman -- hardly a radical lefty:
@arvindsubraman Instead, during a global pandemic, Malpass wants to hold the most vulnerable people in the world hostage to his pet agenda of deregulation. Truly unconscionable.
