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Implementing the World Bank Group’s MFD: Reinforcing Corporate Capture of the Global South

As elaborated in our prior paper, The World Bank Group’s Corporatization of Development, the WBG has been promoting its current approach to development finance in the past years. In the last few Spring and Annual Meetings there had been talk on the role of the WBG as a “broker” between investors and developing countries. This has been more clearly articulated recently as “Maximising Finance for Development,” or the MFD approach.

The World Bank notes that the MFD approach is not altogether new as private sector support has been among the fundamental priorities of its institutions, especially for instance the IFC and MIGA. The way that the MFD is different, says the WB, is in how it makes private sector support “more systematic, making this increasingly the norm for how the WBG does business.” This paper looks into the implementation of the MFD in selected countries, and why there is a need to move beyond these current models.

Contents

•    "MFD" approach: Concoctions for corporations
•    The MFD in three Southern countries
•    Development beyond the "financing gap" narrative