You can't check into a five-star hotel, go down to the Ministry of Finance, and solve the country's problems. Many critics charge that the World Bank's structural-adjustment loans are as damaging to the countries that get them as IMF credit. The Bank gets tarnished with the Fund's program. I have been pushing for a new category of loans not tied to IMF approval that I call development loans. Structural-adjustment loans have the overtone that a country needs money because it needs its nose straightened out.
Some countries are just poor.
The fundamental thing they need is growth and development. The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.