Reflection - World Bank

I found the presentation from the World Bank to be an excellent one, although it was unfortunate that we could not go visit the World Bank at the same time. I think the World Bank Organization is a great thing for the world to have. It is dedicated to the betterment of the world by helping out countries that are in need while also encouraging them to improve on their own by using incentives and developing infrastructure. This gives rise to wealthy states with healthy economies and stable political systems, which in turn lessen the need for the World Bank’s help and makes the world as a whole a better place to live in.

The World Bank also has careful policies to maximize its effects. Its policies regarding investment returns for the countries that give it money to fund its programs greatly incentivize the countries in questions to do everything possible to make the programs succeed. Also, higher donations mean higher amounts of discretion over spending, which gives the country that gives the most money the most power because money can be used as leverage in international politics, fostering more cooperation and providing better conditions and advantages to the countries with increased power. This helps not only the countries being helped, but the countries doing the helping, thereby increasing the amount of people helped without having to increase the amount of money spent on programs.

The Bank also has careful restrictions on the qualifications for getting money, and discretion over which organizations in a country gets the money, which decreases the likelihood of the money being eaten up by corruption and incompetence before it has an impact on the people who need it the most, as happens in general block grants. I really admire well-constructed and efficient organizations that once started are self-powered, generating wealth and stability in the world leads to more funding for the bank, which in turn generates even more wealth and stability.

I think this kind of organization is the kind that gets to the heart of the problems of inequality and hardship in the world. It is difficult to be totally altruistic when your country has limitations of its own, but it is unanimously agreed upon (by people with balanced and healthy minds, at least) that leaving poor countries in the dust is unfair. However, this conflict is often incorrectly branded as a choice between two separate paths. In reality, helping other countries helps the whole world; the world, especially now after so much globalization; has become small enough that we can view it as a closed system in which (in most cases that is -- irrational and/or fundamentalist religious states still pose a problem in this area) a weak country weakens everyone else. and a strong country strengthens everyone else.