The World Bank quietly signaled a bold new commitment to violence-wracked states when it restructured to improve simultaneous reconstruction and poverty alleviation efforts in the summer of 2007.
In July, the bank created its Fragile and Conflict-Affected Countries Group. The new unit, a result of a merger, is responsible for promoting the overall effectiveness of the multilateral funding agency’s response to fragile and conflict-affected countries.
“The bank decided to focus its interest not only in fighting poverty,” Gregorio Bettiza, a social development specialist in the World Bank’s Sustainable Development Unit, told Devex.
Conflict reconstruction initiatives
The motivating data is persuasive: 80 percent of the world’s 20 poorest countries have suffered at least one major war in the past 15 years. On average, countries coming out of war face a 44 percent chance of relapsing within five years.
But can an organization whose mission is to fight poverty and improve living standards assist with conflict prevention and post-conflict reconstruction?
The World Bank believes so. It has sought to break the vicious cycle of poverty-war-more poverty through a variety of conflict prevention and reconstruction initiatives that aim to help economic development take root.
The banks’ Sustainable Development Unit, for instance, develops projects for conflict-affected countries that focus on trying to figure out what role development plays in peace building and what role the lack of development plays in conflicts. It tackles social issues, and is thus mostly comprised of political scientists focused on the lack of cohesion in conflict situations, accountability, and civil society dynamics.
Bettiza is currently working on a project to be implemented next year in one of the most intractable cases of poverty and conflict – the West Bank and Gaza. He is working to finalize the project components, which are mainly related to social analysis and figuring out how to involve young Palestinians in the development process in their country.
Trust funds
In 1997, the bank created the Post-Conflict Fund to complement its existing activities in conflict-affected countries, or those at risk for, experiencing, or have over the last five to 10 years experienced violent conflicts. These countries pose new challenges to an organization traditionally focused on basic poverty elimination.
The fund is active in 14 countries and it provides financing for social and physical reconstruction initiatives in postwar situations. Since its inception, the fund made 189 grants worth $90.3 million, including $8.7 million from donor contributions.
Then in 2004, the World Bank established the Low Income Countries Under Stress Implementation Trust Fund, with an amount of $25 million to the “most marginalized and fragile states in non-accrual status” including Ivory Coast, Liberia, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan, Togo and Zimbabwe.
Since its inception the fund has been replenished twice, first with a $25 million surplus transfer from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development in January 2006, and then through an additional $30 million transfer less than a year later.
The trust’s funds support efforts to introduce basic reforms, strengthen social service delivery, and establish a track record for subsequent access to regular World Bank financing and debt relief.
About the author
Alessia Chiocchetti
Alessia Chiocchetti completed a bachelor's degree in Middle Eastern studies and Arabic language from Cà Foscari University of Venice and a master's in human rights and humanitarian action at the University of Siena and Kingston University in London. She has interned with the U.N. Development Program in Yemen, worked with the International Volunteer Service Association in Lebanon, and served as a U.N. Children's Fund consultant. Alessia was a fellow in our Barcelona office from June to September 2007 before joining the Italian Association for Aid to Children as program coordinator in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Alessia is a native speaker of Italian and fluent in English with a working knowledge of Arabic and Spanish.
