The Multilateral Development Banks: Improving U.S. Leadership

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Upton examines the U.S. policy process toward the five multilateral development banks-the World Bank Group, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the African Development Bank, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development-as a case study in how the United States manages its participation in multilateral institutions. The management of the U.S. role in these institutions is significant primarily because these institutions play an increasingly important role in the U.S. relationship with the developing world and because, for the most part, they are mature institutions being called upon to adapt their roles and operating styles to new financial and political realities. After examining the evolving role of the MDBs from the U.S. perspective, Upon describes the U.S. policy process toward the banks and assesses its strengths and weaknesses. She then sets out recommendations for improving the process and looks at the broader, more general lessons for U.S. policy formulation on multilateral institutions. An important assessment for scholars, researchers, and policy makers involved with international relations and economic policy.

Reviews

"A sound research effort that catalogs the problems and provides a sensible review of the means to rectify them. This volume is better than most on the internal management problems of U.S. agencies overseeing MDBs."-Thomas J. Duesterberg former Director and Senior Fellow Hudson Institute Washington D.C.
"A trenchant, timely analysis of the steady weakening of the U.S. position in the international financial institutions, complemented by sound proposals to remedy the situation in U.S. government policymaking circles and, by extension, to fix the problems within the World Bank and its sister regional banks. The author had a unique combination of insider knowledge and outsider irreverence--you can't do better for ideas to update 50-year-old policies for the twenty-first century."-Richard E. Bissell Chairman World Bank Inspection Panel
"An incisive, much-needed analysis of the need for greater U.S. government attention to the actual results on the ground of World Bank and other multilateral development bank (MDB) programs. Upton's well documented study exposes the gap between the MDB's development rhetoric and their too often poor operational performance. It makes clear that a good part of the responsibilty for conflicting MDB priorities lies with the banks' larger shareholders, especially the United States."-Bruce Rich Director International Programs Environmental Defense Fund Author of Mortgaging the Earth
"Barbara Upton has given us a timely, well researched study of why U.S. policy toward the World Bank and other aid-related multilateral organizations is so muddled and hard to change. It is must reading for any incoming administration in 2001 that wants to have an effective, coherent approach toward managing U.S. interests in these institutions."-James B. Burnham Murrin Professor of Business Duquesne University U.S. Executive Director World Bank Group

Author Bio

BARBARA UPTON was the director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies' project on the United States and the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs). She directed the U.S. Agency for International Development's liaison with the MDBs, UN aid agencies, and other official aid donors for a number of years, and prior to that served as a finance officer for Latin America and the Caribbean. While a U.S. government official she participated in U.S. negotiating teams for all MDB funding negotiations from 1981 until 1995. Current she is engaged in private sector business activities.