经济学人下载:世界银行 亟待重整

Finance and economics
财经商业

Reforming the World Bank
世界银行，亟待重整

Zen and the art of poverty reduction
禅宗思想及扶贫艺术

Calm and confusion at the world's biggest development institution
世界最大发展机构—平静与骚乱并存

THE World Bank may need a period of quiet reflection, but this was ridiculous.
世界银行可能需要一段时间来安静的反思，但这在过去是荒谬可笑的。

On September 10th 300 bankers joined Thich Nhat Hanh, an 87-year-old Vietnamese monk and founder of the Order of Interbeing, for a day of mindful meditation with Jim Kim, the bank's president and an admirer of Mr Hanh.
九月十日，300名银行家以及世界银行行长吉姆金同现年87岁的越南高僧一行禅师进行了为期一天的静心冥想的活动。一行禅师创立了相即共修团，且吉姆金是他的崇拜者之一。

It was all very Zen, one member of staff told the Washington Post.
一切都弥漫着佛教气息，其中一位银行家对华盛顿邮报如是说。

Afterwards, Mr Hanh and 20 brown-robed brethren led a walking meditation through Washington—though since the traffic police did not show up, the quiet contemplation was marred by the not-so-Zen honking of angry drivers.
在这之后，一行禅师和其他20名身穿棕色长袍的同胞们在华盛顿进行了步行禅修的活动。但由于在行进过程中没有交通警察维持秩序，这场安静的冥想被不那么禅的愤怒司机的喇叭声所打扰。

Mr Hanh says he believes in the power of aimlessness and thinks civilisation is threatened by voracious economic growth. Mr Kim does not. He is trying to give the bank a sharper focus.
一行禅师说，他深信无目的的力量，认为贪得无厌的经济增长威胁着现代的文明。吉姆先生但不这样认为。他正尝试着给与世界银行一个更加清晰的重点。

In the unlovely words of a new strategy, endorsed by the bank's governors on October 12th, the group's value proposition is to end extreme poverty by 2030 and to foster income growth among the poorest 40% in every country, not just poor ones.
该组织的新策略价值观主张在十月十二日受到世界银行管理者的支持。该策略的并不讨喜的语言表达了在2030年结束极端贫困并促进每个国家最贫穷的40%的人的收入增长，而不仅仅是穷人们。

The aim is to shake up the world's leading development body.
目的在于震撼这个世界上领导性的发展主体。

Since it began, the World Bank has run almost 12,000 projects in 172 countries.
自从该策略开始施行，世界银行已经在172个国家运作了12000个项目。

But voracious economic growth in the past 25 years has meant that the bank's lending has fallen to less than 1% of the combined economic output of the borrowers.
但是过去25年突飞猛进的经济增长已经意味着世界银行的贷款在借款者复合经济产量中所占比率应经下降到不足1%。

As more nations graduate to middle-income status and win access to capital markets for big development projects, fewer of them need the money and expertise the bank has to offer.
随着越来越多的国家逐渐迈入中等收入行列并获得进入资本市场有大发展项目的机会，越来越少的国家需要世界银行提供的资金和技术。

Having a target for eradicating poverty aims to finesse this.
为消除贫困设定目标旨在细化贫困问题。

Extreme poverty is a global problem and would justify a global institution devoted to ending it.
极端贫困是一个全球问题，而且这个事实证明急需一个全球机制以期结束贫困问题。

One billion people live on less than 1.25 aday, most of them in what the bank calls middle-income countries such as India and Brazil.
目前有十亿人口每天靠不足1.25美元生活，且他们中的大多数都居住在世界银行所称的总等收入水平的国家中，比如印度和巴西。

The bottom 40% includes a further 1.5 billion people.
还有15亿人也属于40%的生活在贫困线以下的人群。

So carving out a role in poverty eradication would make the bank relevant to middle-income countries even though their governments might not need its money any more and might think the bank has little to offer their growing middle classes.
所以银行要在消除贫困中发挥作用，就意味着要与中等收入国家建立联系。即使这些国家政府可能认为他们不再需要世界银行的资金，而且觉得银行对于他们这些正在发展中的中产阶级没有任何帮助。

How much difference the new strategy will make from day to day, though, is open to question.
但是这个新策略会日渐产生什么样的作用仍然是一个未知数。

The bank is already supposed to be helping the poorest; the new goal marks only a shift in emphasis and, on the face of it, will not stop it doing most of what it is doing now.
世界银行已经将目光着眼于援助最贫困的国家，新的目标只是标志着他们重心的转移，而且从表面来看，该银行也不会停止大多数现在正在做的事情。

The aim of eradicating extreme poverty by 2030 is not overly ambitious.
在2030年消除极端贫困的目标也并不过于盲目自信。

Recent data suggest the income of the bottom 40% has been growing as fast as, or faster than, the national average in most developing countries for 25 years.
最新数据表明，在过去的25年里40%的最贫困人口的收入的增长速度已经达到甚至超过大多数发展中国家的平均国民收入的增长速度。

So does the new approach matter?
所以新的方法还是那么重要么？

The rhetorical change probably does not, but the reorganisation which accompanies it might.
夸张惊人的变化似乎不太可能，但是随之而来的重组还是可能会发生的。

For years, the World Bank has been organised along geographic lines.
这些年来，世界银行一直根据地域区域来组织机构。

The regions control the budgets, hire the staff and dominate the bank.
这些区域性的内部机构控制的预算，雇佣员工和管理银行。

They are also responsible for its reputation for being divided into silos: experts from different regions rarely talk to each other.
这些机构对他们封闭机构的名声负责，即来自不同地方的专家甚少相互交流。

In an attempt to break this pattern, the bank is setting up 14 global practices which will cut across the regions.
为了打破这个固定模式，世界银行建立起14项国际组织来将这些地区打破地域性。

The bank has also long been accused of doing too much.
世界银行长久以来也被人们指责其过多的所作所为。

It runs a tiger-conservation project, for instance.
其经营的一个保护老虎的项目就是一个例子。

To provide clearer priorities, the plan proposes a new method for deciding what countries need.
为了规定更加清晰明了的先后顺序，该计划提出了一个新方法来决定一些国家需要什么帮助。

The idea is to diagnose the worst constraints on poverty reduction and focus mainly on those.
这个方法旨在找出减少贫困的最大绊脚石并几种主要精力来解决这些问题。

When the bank ran a pilot country diagnostic for India, it found it needed to concentrate more of its efforts in the six poorest states.
当该行在印度首次进行乡村诊断法时，其发现他们需要将他们的精力更多地集中于六个最贫困的邦郡。

The bank has a history, however, of grandiose reorganisations.
但是世界银行的大规模改组已经由来已久。

One comes along every decade.
每十年就会发生一次。

They rarely achieve much.
但他们总是收效甚微。

There are several reasons why this shake-up might be no different.
此次改组可能并无多大变化，这有各方面的原因。

Diagnosing constraints sounds like an excellent idea.
找出约束改组的限制条件听起来是一个绝妙的主意。

But it turns out that no sooner have you identified one supposedly crucial obstacle than another appears behind it.
但是事实证明问题层出不穷，你刚发现一个潜在的重大困难，另一个问题又开始浮现。

The model might not always give the clear guidance that it did for India.
这个模范实验在印度所起的作用可能无法给其他地方一目了然的指导。

Neither is it certain whether the global practices are intended to be more important than the regional units, or whether the two are supposed to be evenly balanced, and if so, how.
国际实践是否将会比区域行的团体更重要，或者二者被猜测可以平分秋色以及假如这一事实成立，各自应该怎样发挥作用，这两个问题到现在都无法确定。

Setting up global practices also risks turning the bank into a glorified McKinsey in which experts jet in to advise on a big project and jet out—a tendency for which development agencies are already rightly criticised.
建立一个全球性实践行动意味着将冒着把银行转变成一个光辉闪耀的麦肯锡公司。该公司内的专家总是对于大型项目妄下论断然后又突然抽离开来。这个趋势已经使得许多发展机构备受争议。

Then there are doubts about Mr Kim himself.
于是这使得吉姆先生本人也受到人们怀疑。

He has had a wobbly start since being foisted on the bank by the American government last year.
他上任时面临着不利的工作局面，因为其去年被美国政府安插在世界银行。

After winning over many at first, he found himself under attack this summer when senior people began leaving in a huff, or were fired, as the reorganisation took shape.
在开始收获诸多人心之后，这个夏天随着银行重组逐渐成型，该行许多元老开始愤怒的辞职或解雇，他发现自己正处在风口浪尖处。

The grumbling has since died down, but confidence among employees looks shaky.
人们的怨声载道有所平息，但是雇员们的信心看起来不容乐观。

And what if the plan succeeds?
但是如果这项计划大获全胜呢？

Then the institution would face a different problem.
那么这个机构就会面临着一个不同的问题。

If it is all about reducing poverty and extreme poverty is eradicated by 2030, what role would be left to it then?
如果这全部都是为了减少贫困而且在2030年极端贫困将不复存在，那么世界银行还会有什么样的作用呢？

No doubt it will think of something.
毫无疑问它会好好考虑一下了。