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As UNDP Explains African Funding Dearth by World Bank Loans, Zoellick Expresses Doubt

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, March 10 -- The president of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, expressed doubt Monday about the explanation provided by the UN Development Program for having expended more money in Latin America than in Africa, despite the latter's greater need. While UNDP has explained its larger volume in Latin America by saying that the Latin figure includes loans from the World Bank, managed by UNDP, when Inner City Press asked Zoellick about this explanation, he said flatly, "that doesn't strike me as right as all."

   The World Bank's Special Representative to the UN Ferid Belhaj added even clearer, "I doubt it." UNDP, which had been present at the closed door meeting which preceded the press conference by Zoellick, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, African Union chairman Alpha Oumar Konare and others, did not have a representative at the UN press conference. Jeffrey Sachs was on the podium, but last week declined to answer the question. UNDP even declined to provide it own figures on Africa versus Latin America funding, instead telling Inner City Press that "you asked the same question of Jeffrey Sachs that you asked to the head of UNDP's Africa bureau, Gilbert Houngbo on October 16, 2007.  Mr. Houngbo gave you a very detailed answer at that briefing... I would encourage you to check the archived footage.  You ask the question around 1.03.04 during the briefing."

            In the footage to which UNDP points, available here, Mr. Houngbo calls the comparison between UNDP's Africa and Latin America expenditures "misleading" because it does not take into account that much of UNDP's Latin American budget is comprised of loans from the World Bank, managed by UNDP. But the World Bank, at the highest level, says UNDP's explanation "doesn't seem right." So who to believe, about the World Bank's activities? UNDP's spokespeople or the president of the World Bank?

World Bank president Robert Zoellick, with EC's Louis Michel, UNDP not shown

            The World Bank's Ferid Belhaj notes an upcoming March 20 presentation at the UN of what he calls a controversial report on education in the Middle East and North Africa, which will involve a drafter of the report. Watch this site.

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Click here for a Reuters AlertNet piece by this correspondent about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click here for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an undefined trust fund.  Video Analysis here

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