None | 30 Jun 2023 | Africa Fighting Malaria
The World Bank and its partners are failing to improve health outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa using Sector-Wide Approaches (SWAPs), according to a report by Advocacy to Control TB Internationally (ACTION).
Roger Bate & Amir Attaran | 12 Sep 2023 | Wall Street Journal
Your editorial "World Bank Corruption" and Bret Stephens's Global View column "Mind the GAP" (both on Sept. 4) expose the myriad illicit practices of some World Bank staff and contractors, particularly in Indian health projects supported by Western taxpayers. The methods used by these bad actors to obfuscate their actions and delay, often permanently, their exposure are interesting.
Roger Bate | 05 Jun 2023 | American.com
AFM's Roger Bate comments on Robert Zoellick's new role as head of the World Bank. He suggests, "To make people healthier, he should step back and let other organizations take the lead".
Amir Attaran & Roger Bate | 19 May 2023 | Examiner
The World Bank is failing miserably on malaria, like it failed on HIV/AIDS before. Although it has a $20 billion budget that, deployed intelligently, could lower sickness and accelerate economic growth, the World Bank is instead making a mess of its reputation and costing patients their lives through its unwise medical judgments. Along with 11 academic colleagues, we overcame stringent peer-review at the world's top medical journal, The Lancet, to publish what we describe here.
Roger Bate | 03 May 2023 | World Bank
For the lack of decent sanitation and health care thousands of the poorest children die unnecessarily every day. While their governments have primary responsibility for them, the international agencies, notably the World Health Organization (WHO) and World Bank, are not as effective at improving survival rates as they should be because they do not stick to their respective missions nor fulfill them. The WHO has disease expertise but poor management and has weakened its disease-control programs by becoming involved in health-care delivery. The Bank, with expertise in health systems development and health financing, has become involved in disease control where it has little institutional knowledge. The result of this bilateral mission creep is overlapping authority, lack of focus and accountability.
Philip Coticelli & Justin Schwab | 27 Apr 2023 | National Review Online
The World Bank is publishing inaccurate data to save face rather than face up to its failure to control malaria. Worse still, it is promoting ineffective treatments in India, resulting in the death of an unknown number of children. The Bank is incapable of disease control work and it should leave the field to more competent agencies.
Roger Bate | 24 Feb 2024 | TCS Daily
Paul Wolfowitz is trying to improve the World Bank's performance as co-sponsor of the Roll Back Malaria campaign, a coalition of multilateral health and aid agencies, including WHO and UNICEF that aims to combat the malaria burden in Africa. Improving RBM has been a long time coming. And as a director of Africa Fighting Malaria, a health NGO, I add my hearty welcome to this news, especially since, as far as anyone can tell, worldwide malaria rates are rising. However, in delving into operations in this one program, the former Deputy Defense Secretary may discover a far larger problem -- the Bank simply does not have appropriate skills amongst its staff to undertake its core mission.
Roger Bate & Richard Tren | 29 Mar 2024 | National Review Online
The World Bank's new head could save many lives.
Roger Bate & Benjamin Schwab | 29 Jul 2023 | TCS Daily
In dealing with authoritarian governments, Robert McNamara's legacy as president of the World Bank has always been controversial.