In many developing countries, the very richest people send their children to be educated abroad, and they frequently stay there. At the other end of the scale, the public education system is often in need of considerable improvement. The IFC, which is obliged to invest only in the private sector, can help fill the middle ground, says Woicke. He argues that middle class children, educated locally, will stay in their own countries and contribute to economic development. And, there will also be scholarships for children from poorer sections of society.
Similar arguments apply to private healthcare.
Many countries have doctors that would like to practise locally, but are often attracted abroad. But Woicke says that the much higher returns on projects in some other sectors would allow the Corporation to invest in education and health schemes that merely broke even.