Strong US leadership contested. Two letters in today's Washington Post from former Bank officials respond harshly to Sebastian Mallaby's pugnacious op-ed in that paper last week. Mallaby, you'll recall, said the bank's "affinity with the world's most successful society" was a plus and that Paul Wolfowitz's "strength is that he'll make the bank a tool of U.S. policy."

Johanna Mendelsson Forman, who used to work in the Bank's post-conflict unit poured cold water on the Mallaby thesis as follows: "The World Bank's ability to play a significant role in the nation-building process will be proven only by its ability to link security and development, something World Bankers are apt to shun".

While Fritz Fishcer, a former Executive Director to the Bank, adds: "the dominance of U.S.-trained economists at the World Bank has not been so successful and has even weakened the institution. These U.S.-trained economists consider their profession close to a natural science that allows for predictable and concise developments. This has been proved wrong again and again".

He concludes: "To make the World Bank "a tool of U.S. policy," as Mr. Mallaby suggested, would reverse a painful learning process that has made the bank more multicultural and more effective".

Readers of this site since the beginning will anyway recall that Mallaby has changed his tune in recent weeks. In February he complained bitterly about the Administration's "desperation" in the Bank appointment process and absolutely refused to back any of the U.S. candidates for the Bank job.

Alex Wilks ~ April 06, 2005

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