World Development Report author quits
BY SEAN HEALY
The World Bank has been embarrassed by the June 13 resignation of Ravi Kanbur, the chief author of its flagship World Development Report 2000, after Kanbur claimed unacceptable pressure had been placed on him to tone down sections of the report critical of capitalist "globalisation".
The WDR compiles data from around the globe on both economic and social indicators, including poverty, literacy, mortality rates and income distribution.
The World Bank had gone to great lengths to promote outside comment on the 2000 report. Kanbur, the professor of world affairs at Cornell University, had been engaged as chief author in 1998 precisely to give an outsider's view on the topic.
Kanbur had masterminded a January electronic conference to discuss the WDR first draft, which for the first time was distributed before its scheduled publication, in September. Many of the 1523 participants felt the draft had made real progress, moving beyond national average figures on poverty incidence to examine the many factors which influence poverty outcomes for vulnerable population groups. In May, Kanbur pledged to strengthen the report, in particular by revising "the concluding recommendations to bring global actions to center stage".
The Bretton Woods Project, which watches the World Bank, claims that "reliable Washington sources" revealed to it that US Treasury secretary Larry Summers had become directly involved in re-writing the globalisation sections of the report.
BWP coordinator Alex Wilks commented that Kanbur's resignation "confirms our view that the World Bank is unable to accept dissenting views, whether from insiders or outsiders. Coming soon after Joe Stiglitz departed as chief economist, this is a major blow for an institution trying to position itself as a 'knowledge Bank' and a 'listening Bank'. It raises questions of who really calls the shots at the Bank and what evidence or opinions about the impacts of globalisation they are trying to suppress."