114/YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE!
balanced growth of international trade by encouraging international
investment' (Article I).
How the World Bank and the IMF are Run
According to the statutes, the highest governing body in the Bank is
the Board of Governors, each country is represented by a governor.
The Bank and IMF's governors are usually the different countries'
Ministers of Finance or central bank presidents.
In theory, the governors choose the Bank president. In fact,
however, the president has always been a US citizen and is chosen by
the US government, usually by the Secretary of the Treasury. The
head of the IMF is usually European. Annual meetings between the
Bank and the IMF are an occasion for all the governors of the two
institutions to gather in one place.
On a day-to-day basis, most of the governors' powers are delegated
to the Board of Executive Directors. In the beginning, the Bank had
twelve executive directors who represented the 44 founding member
countries.
The Bank's charter stipulates that each of the Bank's five biggest
shareholders nominate its own executive director, each of the
remaining directors represents a number of countries and is elected
by them. The Bank has continually picked up new members (in
1997, there were 180 member countries), and as a result there are
now 24 executive directors. The weight of each one's vote is
essentially proportional to the share of funds provided to the Bank by
the countries they represent.
The US vote accounted for 36 per cent of the total when the Bank
was founded; it has now been reduced to 17.5 percent. In 1997, the
ten richest industrialised countries controlled 5 2 per cent of all votes,
while 45 African countries together control only 4 per cent.
Executive directors live in Washington, meet often (at least once a
week) and must approve each loan and the Bank's main policies.
Day-to-day decisions require a simple majority on the Executive
Board, but any change to the constitutive charter requires the
approval of at least three-fifths of members and 8 5 per cent of total
vote shares (which means the US, with 17.5 per cent of votes, has a
veto on all changes to the statutes).