World Bank role debated
Fifteen MBA students from the John Molson School of Business were able to take top-level development pundits to task at the McGill World Bank Conference on Private Sector Development, held at McGill University on Oct. 14.
Organized by McGill MBA students, the conference attracted more than 100 MBA students from Concordia, McGill, and the École des Hautes Études Commerciales (HEC) at the University of Montreal.
Participants learned about trends in private sector development, private financing of infrastructure in Africa and the impact of international trade on emerging economies.
The keynote speakers were vice-president of the World Bank Institute Frannie Leautier and Jean-François Gascon, who is the vice-president of SNC-Lavalin’s African division.
Other representatives from the Bank and other groups, such as the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), as well as several McGill faculty members, also participated.
Conversation at this event was not a one-way street, and students were able to ask plenty of questions. “They were approachable to the point that I was able to go straight up to and speak with a vice-president of the World Bank afterward,” said International Aviation MBA student John Doyle, one of the 15-strong Concordia contingent.
Concordia MBA student Anouk Bertner said she attended primarily to see if there was any truth to the negative impression she had of the World Bank.
“Even if you’re getting the party line, it’s useful,” she said. “I felt that the people presenting were probably being very honest, however I don’t think they fully understand the ramifications of the World Bank’s actions.”
Established in 1944 to provide funds to assist in the reconstruction of Europe after the Second World War, the World Bank has since set its sights on the eradication of poverty, and loans millions of dollars to developing countries every year.
Critics say its policies are often ill-conceived, unsustainable, and end up hurting recipient countries more than they help them.
Some developing countries have become saddled with debt so large that they have little hope of ever paying it off, a problem many say the Bank has not addressed.
Doyle said he thought the Bank had been unfairly criticized, and that responsibility for lifting developing nations out of poverty does not lie solely on its shoulders. “The World Bank is trying to help the world’s poorest countries because at the moment, no one else will.”
He hinted that consumers should consider their own complicity . “We can blame a lot of people, including ourselves,” he said. ‘There’s plenty of it to go around.”