The World Bank, Poverty Creation and the Banality of Evil

By Alnoor Ladha, Truthout | News Analysis

This week, the World Bank is convening its 16th annual "Conference on Land and Poverty," which brings together corporations, governments and civil society groups to ostensibly discuss how to "improve land governance."

As this is happening, hundreds of civil society organizations are denouncing the World Bank's role in global land grabs. As the organization I am part of, The Rules, is a member of Our Land Our Business, the umbrella campaign of farmer organizations, indigenous groups, trade unions and grassroots organizers from around the world protesting against the Bank's policies, I often get asked the question, why do civil society and the World Bank have such differing views of the Bank's role? Reading the Bank's website, one would think that the World Bank was in the same line of work as the activists challenging their policy. In fact, they have recently adopted the earnest tagline of "Working for a world free of poverty."