The Multilateral Development Banks: Volume 5, Titans or Behemoths?

		ISBN: 978-1-55587-470-4 $35.00
		ISBN: 978-1-55587-496-4 $8.00
		ISBN: 978-1-62637-308-2 $8.00
	1997/191 pages/LC: 94-45003

The multilateral banks are powerful forces in the international community, providing loans of more than $250 billion to developing countries over the last half-century. The best-known of these, the World Bank, has been studied extensively, but the "regional development banks" are little understood, even within their own geographic regions.

This book synthesizes the insights of four "regional" books, summarizing key points and also examining the multilateral banks (including the World Bank and the recently created European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) as a genre of development agencies. Among the difficult questions Culpeper addresses are: How effectively do the multilateral banks assist the world's one billion desperately poor? What has been their role in the evolving debt crisis? In an era of diminishing aid budgets and rising private-sector flows to developing countries, do these institutions even have a future?

• INTRODUCTION.
• MDBs at the Crossroads.
• Overview.
• HISTORY AND EVOLUTION.
• Origins.
• Institutional Characteristics.
• The RDBs and the World Bank: Comparisons and Relationships.
• MULTILATERAL DEVELOPMENT BANKS IN THE 1990s: Reflection and Reform.
• Key Policy Implications of the MDB Project.
• The Portfolio Reviews.
• Epilogue: Relations Between the MDBs and Related Organizations.
• MDBS AS AGENTS OF CHANGE:
• The Development Impact.
• The First Three Decades (1945-1975): From Investment to Growth.
• Impact of Multilateral Bank Assistance.
• The Last Two Decades: From Poverty Reduction to Adjustment and Back.
• Conclusion: Achievements and Prospects for Eliminating Poverty.
• MDBs IN THE FAMILY OF DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION AGENCIES.
• Africa.
• Asia.
• The Americas.
• Eastern and Central Europe and Central Asia.
• Systemic Principles and Structures.
• Harmonizing Evaluation Systems.
• Putting Borrowing Clients in the Driver's Seat: Harmonizing Country Strategies.
• Creating a Client Satisfaction Unit.
• KEY CHALLENGES FOR THE MULTILATERAL BANKS
• Resource Flows and Debt.
• Resources.
• Multilateral Debt.
• Non-Concessional Debt.
• Concessional Debt.
• Conclusion.
• DO THE MULTILATERAL BANKS HAVE A FUTURE?
• The Future of Development.
• Toward a Vision for the Twenty-First Century.
• From Vision to Reality.
• From Assistance to Cooperation: A Role for the MDBs.
• From Resource Transfers to Quality Assurance.
• Challenges to the MDBs: Falling Resource Flows and Debt.
• Titans or Behemoths?