1. The globalization of market forces, vigorously promoted by the World Bank, creates greater inequality. Over the past 30 years the globalization of the economy-led by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and transnational corporations-has proceeded at a quickening pace. These institutions have pressured governments to remove barriers to the cross-border flows of money and products. Advances in telecommunications and computer technology have made it possible for trillions of dollars in finance capital to zoom around the world, 24 hours a day, searching for the highest rate of interest.
This globalization of market forces has greatly increased inequality. Just 150 years ago there was not great inequality between the standards of living of people in the global north and those in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Now the richest 20 percent of the world's population receives 83% of the world's income, while the poorest 60% of the world's people receive just 5.6% of the world's income. The richest 20% of the world's population in northern industrial countries uses 70% of the world's energy, 75% of the world's metals, 85% of the world's wood, 60% of the world's food, and produces about 75% of the world's environmental pollution.
2. The World Bank is wrong in arguing that economic growth will solve the problems we face. World Bank officials keep reassuring us that if we can just get economic growth rates high enough, these problems will be solved. We regularly hear the refain, "a rising tide floats all boats." But for those who don't own boats or have leaky boats, a rising tide means greater inequality between them and the more fortunate. The data shows that during a period of significant growth in world trade (1960 to 1989), global inequality got significantly worse: the ratio between the richest 20% and poorest 20% of the world population went from 30 to 1 to 59 to 1. We should also remember that unrestrained growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
3. The real function of institutions such as the World Bank is not to promote "development" but rather to integrate the ruling elites of third world countries into the global system of rewards and punishments. Because direct colonial control of the third world is no longer tolerated, northern elites need an indirect way to control policies implemented by third world governments. By getting the elites onto a debt treadmill and promising them new cash if they implement policies written in Washington, the World Bank can effectively control third world policies. You can see the effects right next door in Mexico. For more than a decade, Mexican elites have followed the "Washington consensus" of policy reforms designed by the World Bank. This has created some billionaires, yet for most of the 85 million Mexican people life is more difficult now than it was ten or twenty years ago. If the ruling PRI party did not control the police and military, its blatant corruption and disastrous economic policies would not be tolerated for long.
4. Evidence from many countries shows that the policies promoted by the World Bank are disastrous. Whether you look at poor countries such as Somalia, Rwanda and Mozambique or well- endowed countries such as Ghana, Brazil and the Philippines, the policies pushed by the World Bank have worsened conditions for the majority. Evidence from dozens of countries under World Bank tutelage shows a similar pattern: structural adjustment policies may help countries pay off their foreign debts and may create some millionaires but the majority of the population suffers lower wages, reduced social services and less democratic access to the policy-making process.
5. The World Bank's emphasis on expanding exports has been disastrous for the environment. As part of the standard structural adjustment package, the World Bank encourages countries to expand their exports so they will have more hard currency (dollars, yen) to make payments on their foreign debts. But this leads countries to overexploit their natural resources. They cut down their forests, which contributes to the greenhouse effect. They pump chemicals onto their land to produce export crops such as coffee, tea and tobacco, thus poisoning their land and water. They rip minerals out of the ground at a frantic pace, endangering human lives and the environment in the process. They overfish coastal and international waters, depleting a resource of the global commons.
6. The "free market" economic model being pushed on third world governments is not one the industrial countries used to develop themselves. All the wealthy countries-the USA, Japan, Germany, England, France and the recent success stories such as Taiwan and South Korea-used a heavily state-interventionist model that had government play a strong role in directing investment, managing trade and subsidizing chosen sectors of the economy. The United States was in many ways the "mother country" of protectionism,
The link below goes into some of them. I hope you find it of use.
One bit from it is
"The World Bank funds specific infrastructure projects. One of its agencies, the International Development Association, focuses on the world's poorest nations. The Bank is pledged to UN-backed Millenium Development Goals to reduce key indicators of poverty by 2015."
