The World Bank

This report cautiously welcomes DFID's increased contributions to the World Bank development programme, but calls for greater Parliamentary scrutiny of its spending and warns that the Bank must be reformed. It calls for: a more open process for selecting the current President's successor; a more equitable allocation of voting shares for developing countries; the Bank's main watchdog, the Independent Evaluation Group, to be strengthened; the promotion of girls' education to be made an early priority; more support to improve the financial viability of renewable energy. The Government must give MPs the chance to fully debate the key decisions taken by the Bank given the large sums of money being donated by Britain. In December the Government announced that its contribution to the International Development Association (IDA) - the aid arm of the World Bank - would increase to an average of £888 million a year for each of the three years (a total of £2.7 billion) in its sixteenth programme. The UK should use its role as one of the largest contributors to the International Development Association to ensure that a robust system is put in place to evaluate the performance of the President during his or her tenure.