Almost 16 years ago, Robert McNamara visited Upper Volta (presently Burkina Faso) as President of the World Bank. In his report to the Directors of the Bank upon his return, McNamara suggested that, since the people living along the Volta River suffered from river blindness, the Bank´s priority should be to rid the region of the disease before making economic investments there. This realistic assessment of problem in Upper Volta prompted the Bank bureaucracy to turn its attention to the health sector as well.
McNamara´s tenure brought to the World Bank a leadership which was sensitive to the problems of the least developed countries. Today, the World Bank is quite distanced from McNamara´s vision. It has slowly reverted back to its old pattern of investment, interest and profit earning. This is clear from the conditionalities being imposed by the Bank on Nepal and other developing countries.
The World Bank is not a commercial bank. It is supposed to be an investment bank to provide relief to the poor. Unfortunately, it has evolved as an intermediate between "investors and recipients, borrowing from one and lending to the other," So Jong as there is the motive of profit through interest, the Bank will remain unconcerned about the result of its investment in developing countries.
The Bank´s August 1990 report on Nepal, Relieving Poverty in a Resource Poor Economy, states: "Nepal is a very poor country in which the Bank and the donor community have made substantial investment [presumably with the objective of raising living standards] but with little understanding of how our programmes affect the incomes of the poor." While this statement is certainly honest in its self-indictment, it also indicates that an institution on which Nepal´s Government and people have laid so much trust has really been groping in the dark.