When Reality Contradicts Rhetoric: World Bank Lending Practices in Developing Countries in Historical, Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives

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The authors provide a compelling and balanced critique of the world’s largest multilateral development lending agency in the context of globalization and the increasing domestication of market-based economic reforms. Adopting a tripartite historical, theoretical and empirical approach the study shows how the Bank is still moored in neo- liberal market ideology and western hegemony, lacks transparency and democracy in its workings, and boasts ‘pro-poor’ policies that are little more than empty rhetoric. They conclude that the Bank must be radically transformed to meet to improve its record on lending to poor countries, as well as to deal with the sharpened problem of poverty ushered in by globalization.