Moreover, as with Chad's Déby, the IFC continues to lend and invest in countries with heavy-handed rulers such as Syria (Bashar al-Assad) and Venezuela (Hugo Chávez). Kaldany told me there were about a dozen dictatorships, which he wouldn't name, where the IFC would simply not do business. But then there is a second tier, where he is inclined to work. "It is a tradeoff. We can have a positive influence," he said, referring to a recent IFC deal in now civil war-torn Syria to fund microfinance. He said the IFC is insisting on increasingly tight financial controls in such countries to ensure that the proceeds from the projects are targeted directly to the poor rather than to sustaining the dictators' hold on power. He acknowledged that the controls in the Chad case were not nearly tight enough and that the IFC ultimately had to pull out.
The IFC's critics see two obvious ways to fix it: dramatically overhaul its priorities or sharply reduce its funding and channel those resources toward the type of World Bank projects that more closely align with its anti-poverty mission.
Kaldany said that the IFC is seeking to increase its number of small projects, of under $5 million and tightly targeted on the poor, and to devote more attention to the poorest of the poor countries. In the most recent fiscal year, it generated 105 of the smaller projects, 20 percent of its total deals, although a much smaller percentage of its total dollar outlays. (IFC officials couldn't immediately provide that number.)
But don't count on a new direction. Although its new leadership has remained publicly mum, the IFC's new chief, Cai, has told people he strongly supports its current strategy.
IN ACCRA, NOT FAR from the new Mövenpick, the IFC's posh offices -- sporting a lawn, flowers, and private parking -- sit amid a slum, surrounded by an imposing concrete wall topped by coils of barbed wire. The only paved part of the road to the IFC is directly in front of the guarded complex, which has no sign announcing its identity. The rest of the road is a winding, dusty dirt path filled with potholes and surrounded by hovels erected out of battered metal or wood.
Barefoot children sit amid goats and roving chickens, on ground dotted by garbage and litter. Women cook tiny fish strung onto sticks over an open fire, ignoring the near-100-degree temperatures. I approached them one day in July, and some of them said they had lived there for 15 years. When asked whether they knew what the World Bank is, they said no. When told that it fights poverty, many of them laughed.
"We need help, and we know there are places that help," said one woman who was cooking as two young boys clung to her legs. "But we have never heard of them."
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