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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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