The Bretton Woods Conference, held in Britain in 1944, is often described as the defining moment that reshaped the global economy in the aftermath of the Second World War. It was here that the United States inherited the world’s economic reins from the ageing European colonial powers, and where currencies were pegged to the US dollar instead of gold—a decision that led the esteemed economist John Maynard Keynes to leave the conference in anger, protesting against the attempt to disguise this scheme as international legitimacy. Out of this gathering, two global institutions were born: the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, collectively known as the Bretton Woods institutions. The World Bank officially began its operations on 27 January 1946.
The World Bank comprises five institutions: the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the International Development Association, the International Finance Corporation, the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. Officially, these organisations aim to support post-war reconstruction, poverty alleviation, and, more recently, the so-called Millennium Development Goals.
During the 1980s, the bank expanded its activities to macroeconomic policies and debt restructuring. Later in the decade, social and environmental issues took centre stage. As civil society movements gained greater freedom of expression, the bank found itself accused of failing to adhere to its own stated policies in several high-profile projects.
In response to concerns over its operational integrity, the 1992 Wapenhans Report was released, leading to some reform measures, including the establishment of an independent inspection panel to investigate claims against the bank. However, criticism continued to mount, peaking at the 1994 annual meetings in Madrid, where the bank became a symbol of secrecy and of the economic, political, and sometimes military disasters that had befallen developing nations under its schemes—particularly after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Egypt has not been spared from these so-called ‘conspiracies’—a term used by the Land Centre for Human Rights, though others may prefer to call them ‘failures’ in a more indulgent tone. In its report, World Bank Policies in Egypt: A History of Conspiracies—Agriculture as a Case Study, the centre highlights that Egypt was one of the first countries to join the World Bank in 1945. In 1999, Egypt secured loans from the International Development Association, the bank’s concessional lending arm for low-income countries. However, as Egypt is now classified as a middle-income country, it can borrow significant sums from the World Bank for reconstruction and development, but it is no longer eligible for interest-free loans or grants from the International Development Association.
The report delves into the bank’s overt and covert policies, from the early negotiations over the construction of the Aswan High Dam—which the United States sought to obstruct—to the reckless mismanagement of Egypt’s natural gas wealth. It traces the shift in economic direction under Anwar al-Sadat following the October War, the relentless cycle of loans and their enticements and pressures, and the creeping privatisation of national sovereignty over the economy. It also examines the catastrophic consequences of an ill-planned market liberalisation policy, which has devastated low-income groups and the most vulnerable members of society. This, ultimately, is the outcome of more than half a century of cooperation with an institution that has long served as a tool for exploiting the world’s poor to advance the interests of those who wield the power to manipulate the fate of nations.
This article is originally published by AlBorsa in Arabic and later AI-translated by South Push.