For once, an international institution half-agrees with its critics

YOU are part of a global conglomerate. Your market share has fallen from 18% to 6% in a decade. Well-financed niche-players are moving in, threatening to appropriate the most exciting areas. And now a report by your auditors has said that, even of your remaining business, a third has failed to come up to scratch. If you were a division of General Electric in Jack Welch’s day (“Be first or second in a field, or get out of it”), you would probably be facing closure. Who, in these circumstances, would want to be in charge of global health at the World Bank?

The report in question* was prepared by the bank’s Independent Evaluation Group, an internal monitoring organisation that reports to the bank’s board. It looked at how effective the loans dished out for health purposes by the bank and its private-sector-promoting associate, the International Finance Corporation, have been at doing what they were meant to do. …