IDA's Borrowers

History

When the International Bank for Reconstruction and Develop­ment (IBRD), better known as the World Bank, was established in 1944, its first task was to help Europe recover from the devastation of World War II. Once Europe was rebuilt, the Bank turned its attention to the develop­ing countries. As the 1950s progressed, it became clear that the poorest developing countries could not afford to borrow needed capital for devel­opment on the terms offered by the Bank. They required easier terms.

With the United States taking the initiative, a group of Bank mem­ber countries decided to set up an institution that could lend to very poor developing nations on highly concessional terms. They called it the Inter­national Development Association (IDA). Its founders saw IDA as a way for the «haves» of the world to help the «have-nots». But they also wanted IDA to be imbued with the discipline of a bank. For this reason, US Presi­dent Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed, and other countries agreed, that IDA should be part of the World Bank.

http://www.ida.org.

184 Глава 3. Международные финансовые организации

IDA's Articles of Agreement became effective in I960. The first IDA loans (known as credits) were approved in 1961, to Honduras, India, Sudan and Chile.

IBRD and IDA are run on the same lines. They share the same staff, the same headquarters, report to the same president and use the same rigorous standards when evaluating projects. IDA simply takes its money out of a different «drawer». A country must be a member of IBRD before it can join IDA; 164 countries are IDA members.

IDA lends to countries that have a per capita income in 2002 of less than S875 and lack the financial ability to borrow from IBRD.

At present, 81 countries are eligible to borrow from IDA. Together these countries are home to 2.5 billion people, comprising half of the total population of the developing countries. An estimated 1.1 billion people in IDA countries survive on incomes of less than $1 a day. Some countries, such as India and Indonesia, are eligible for IDA due to their low per ca­pita incomes, but are also creditworthy for some IBRD borrowing. These countries are known as «Blend» borrowers.

IDA eligibility is a transitional arrangement, allowing the poorest countries access to'substantial resources before they can obtain from the markets the financing they need in order to invest. As their economies grow, countries 'graduate' from eligibility. The re-payments (or reflows) they make on their loans they had obtained then help finance new IDA loans to the remaining poor countries. Over the years, twenty-three countries have seen their economies develop and grow beyond the IDA-eligibility threshold. These countries, that are now too prosperous to qualify for IDA funds include China, Costa Rica, Chile, Egypt, Mo­rocco, Thailand, and Turkey.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-02