In a recent article published in this forum Phyllis Muhammad wrote about "the twin evils that have bedeviled the World Bank's relationship with Africa as a continent and Africans as human beings." Her article opened a space for a new perspective and discourse, identifying the twin evils as structural and cultural. The structural "concerns a 'democracy deficit' in the Bank's governance architecture that has denied Africa voice in the institution's Boardroom." The cultural "involves institutional discrimination in the day-to-day management of the Bank." See "Unmasking Racist World Bank,"
The purpose of this article is to show that Africans are virtually absent at any level to influence global policies that affect their continent's destiny. Since the late 1990s, Africa has taken center stage of the Bank's business, accounting for 50 percent of the International Development Association funds. However, as Ms. Muhammad noted "Sub Saharan Africa, home for 30 percent of the world's poor, was allotted 5.55 percent of the World Bank's voting rights." Africans are muted in the Bank's Boardrooms, where strategic policies that have significant bearings on Africa are set.
