World Bank Fact Sheet #1
No dollars for destruction: Bank
Facts
Greenpeace
International
- For every taxpayer dollar invested in the World Bank
by the UK Government, UK companies receive $1.85 in
procurement contracts to carry out World Bank work. In
France, every dollar invested in the bank brings French
companies $1.82; in the US $1.80; Germany, $1.51; Japan
$1.01. (source: US Treasury secretary Lloyd Bentsen
testimony to Congress).
- Estimated square km of forest destroyed due to World
Bank loans:1.9 million.
- Tonnes of CFCs phased out in developing countries by
May this year by the World Bank: 245. Present consumption
of ozone depleting substances in developing countries is
150,000 tonnes.
- Number of World Bank Structural Adjustment Loans
subjected to Environmental Assessment studies in 1993:
0
- Between 1980 and 1989 some 33 African countries
received 241 structural adjustment loans from the World
Bank. During that same period:
- GDP per capita in those countries fell 1.1% a
year
- Per capita food production experienced a steady
decline
- Real value of minimum wage dropped by over 25%
- Government expenditure on education fell from $11 -
$7 billion
- Number of poor people rose by 17% from 184 million in
1985 to 216 million in 1990.
- Number of people currently being resettled due to
World Bank projects: 2 million
- Number of poor people displaced by World Bank loans
in India since 1947: 20 million
- Number of World Bank projects with successful
relocation (according to US Congress Human Rights
caucus): 0
- World Bank loans to be committed to the human
rights-violating Indonesian Government in 1994: $5
billion
- In 1992, UK contractors and consultants received $285
million in fees from the Bank's IDA (International
Development Association). Bangladesh's loan that year
from the IDA was $253 million. Bangladesh has to pay the
money back; the UK consultants do not. Switzerland, then
not even a bank member, received more than Sri Lanka and
the Philippines. (source: global exchange).
- In 1993, 14 severely indebted countries (mainly
African) paid more in debt services to the World Bank
than they received from it in new loans.
- In 1991, the World Bank itself deemed 38% of its
projects unsatisfactory.
- 20% of the world's population live in the 10 richest
countries: those 10 richest countries earn 85% of world
income; they also hold a 54% share of votes in the World
Bank.
- The 48 subsaharan African countries have a 4.8% share
of votes in the bank.
- 1993 World Bank administration budget: $1 billion.
Most of this was spent on staff salaries.
- World Bank profits for 1993: $1.1 billion
- World Bank liquid reserves, 1993: $19 billion
- 74% of the World Bank's $3.2 billion transportation
loans in 1993 was spent on road and highway construction
rather than on environmentally friendly urban
mass-transit and non-vehicular transport.
Source: Greenpeace International Web Server.
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