The World Bank has scrapped its flagship annual Doing Business report, following an external investigation that revealed multiple efforts to influence the rankings and manipulate outcomes in favor of countries such as China and Saudi Arabia to the detriment of other nations that slid down the list.
The scandal was a sharp blow to the global lender’s reputation as a leading source of impartial data and information.
It has also raised doubts about the political future of International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, who was the chief executive at the World Bank from 2017 to 2019 and is accused of putting her finger on the scales to help China’s ranking in the Doing Business index in 2018 — a charge she denies.