Defending the People's Railway in the Era of Liberalization: TAZARA in Southern Tanzania

Africa ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 76 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamie Monson
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Rural Community ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Community Leaders ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Pan African ◽  
The People ◽  
The World

AbstractWhen the services of the TAZARA railway in Tanzania were threatened with cutbacks in the 1980s and 1990s, rural community leaders wrote petitions of protest to district–level officials. In these petitions, they complained that railway decision–making was being guided by profit–making rather than nation–building priorities in response to pressure from the IMF and the World Bank. The railway had abandoned its original role as a servant of the people, they argued, employing the language of socialism, nationhood and pan–African solidarity that had been utilized by the state during the construction era in the 1970s. Yet the railway services sought by these local communities had facilitated their own entry into profit–seeking behaviour as entrepreneurs in the TAZARA corridor. The transition from socialism to liberalization along the TAZARA railway was therefore a negotiated process in which the meaning of concepts such as ‘privatization’, ‘profit’ and ‘freedom’ were contested.

scholarly journals Biased Policy Professionals

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 310-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheheryar Banuri ◽  
Stefan Dercon ◽  
Varun Gauri
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
International Development ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Development Policy ◽  
Public Servants ◽  
Private Capacity ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Subject Pool ◽  
The World ◽  
The Uk

Abstract Although the decisions of policy professionals are often more consequential than those of individuals in their private capacity, there is a dearth of studies on the biases of policy professionals: those who prepare and implement policy on behalf of elected politicians. Experiments conducted on a novel subject pool of development policy professionals (public servants of the World Bank and the Department for International Development in the UK) show that policy professionals are indeed subject to decision-making traps, including the effects of framing outcomes as losses or gains, and, most strikingly, confirmation bias driven by ideological predisposition, despite having an explicit mission to promote evidence-informed and impartial decision making. These findings should worry policy professionals and their principals in governments and large organizations, as well as citizens themselves. A further experiment, in which policy professionals engage in discussion, shows that deliberation may be able to mitigate the effects of some of these biases.

The People and their River, the World Bank and its Dam: Revisiting the Xe Bang Fai River in Laos

2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (5) ◽  
pp. 1080-1105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian G. Baird ◽  
Bruce P. Shoemaker ◽  
Kanokwan Manorom
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The People ◽  
The World

Managing data using an ontology for enterprise decision making: a case of the World Bank

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 326
Author(s):  
Tengku Adil Tengku Izhar ◽  
Torab Torabi ◽  
Trieu Minh Nhut Le
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
World Bank ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World

scholarly journals Looking at the World Bank’s safeguard reform through the lens of deliberative democracy

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 465-482 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Houghton
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
International Law ◽  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Consultation Process ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Law Making

AbstractThe sheer amount of non-state participation in the creation of the World Bank Environmental and Social Framework (ESF) is surely noteworthy. The aim of the Bank’s consultation was to get ‘global’ input and feedback, and with over 8,000 stakeholders from over 63 countries taking part, it is laudable. The extent of the participation challenges the positivist approach to international law-making, which views only states as having the power to make law and raises questions about how to legitimize such international soft-law making. Legitimacy is entangled with democracy, as scholars debate whether democracy is the required benchmark for decision-making processes at international organizations. This article uses deliberative democracy to analyse the ESF consultation process. Whilst, democratic legitimacy has been interpreted to mean inclusivity and participation, deliberative democracy raises a series of hard questions about equality and power that scholarship on global governance needs to grapple with. Although this participatory process at the World Bank challenges traditional narratives in international law, analysing it through a lens of deliberative democracy exposes the work that still needs to be done to discuss democracy in international decision-making.

Excerpts from Joseph Stiglitz's Speech to the World Bank, April 1999

2000 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abby Scher ◽  
Phineas Baxandall ◽  
Jean McMahon
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Life Expectancy ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Neoliberal Reform ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
Neoliberal Policies ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

The Journal has published several articles critical of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. These articles have shown the damage caused by the neoliberal policies advocated by these agencies to the health and quality of life of the people in countries where such policies are carried out. Published here are excerpts of a speech given by Joseph Stiglitz, senior economist of the World Bank, in which he finally recognizes the damage these policies have caused in Russia, where life expectancy has fallen quite dramatically during the years of neoliberal reform. The question triggered by his speech is why the World Bank continues its neoliberal policies.

scholarly journals A Study on Poverty in Turkey and in the World

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Yunus Taş ◽  
Selami Özcan
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Poverty Line ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
The Other ◽  
African Countries ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
Us Dollar

Poverty has become one of the most important problems for both underdeveloped and developed countries along with increasing globalization in the world since the second half of the 20th century. On the other hand, it has been claimed that the world is having its richest period of time. While two billion and five hundred millions of the people live under 2 US dollars, which has been determined by the World Bank as the poverty line, one billion and two hundred million of people live under 1 US dollar which has been determined as the hunger line. In our study, dimensions of poverty problems in certain significant countries and continents of the world (such as OECD and African countries) will be tried to be explained by giving quantities and graphics. Besides giving the rates of poverty in Turkey and Kazakhstan, studies concerning this issue and examples as regards their solutions will be given. As a result, suggestions towards lessening the rates of populations in those countries which have poverty and increasing life standards will be tried to ve given.

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