Economic and political implications of the new lending criteria

The World Bank is a genuine investment agency. This fact seems to be self-evident, yet not fully realized by a larger public. At present, the World Bank (IBRD), together with its affiliate, the International Development Association (IDA), is also a multilateral development institution, the largest in the world. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how this dual role influences the Bank’s lending criteria in the less developed countries (LDCs) as well as the attitudes of its creditors.