To save IDA, the World Bank launched a misleading public relations campaign to convince Congress and the American public that U.S. taxpayers’ contributions to IDA are good for the American economy because they return in the form of contracts for U.S. companies.
In fact, U.S. firms receive only about $0.23 in contracts for each $1.00 the United States contributes to IDA. Instead of being a boon for the American economy, IDA appears to be a black hole into which taxpayers pour billions of dollars for bad projects and pork-barrel contracts for a few American firms.
Members of Congress and lawmakers from other donor countries should reject the public relations pitches that accompany the World Bank’s increasingly desperate search for new funds and refuse to commit their constituents’ tax dollars to IDA in 1997 and beyond.