From the article:
The World Bank announced Wednesday that in response to the “violence, destruction and forced displacement of the Rohingya,” it will delay the release of a $200 million loan planned for Myanmar.
The money was part of a credit deal reached with the fledgling democracy in August and represented the first instance of direct financial support from the World Bank to Myanmar’s government.
The World Bank is still delivering support to Myanmar and has “strengthened” its engagement in “education, health services, electricity, rural roads and inclusion of all ethnic groups and religions, particularly in Rakhine state,” the statement reads. This loan, specifically designed to support the government on issues of financial and public administration, however, will be withheld for an unspecified period of time...
“Given the scale of the humanitarian crisis there, the culpability of the government, it meets the test, in my mind, of a case where the owners of the World Bank ought to be looking at the World Bank as a potential sanctions tool,” Scott Morris, senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, told Devex prior to the bank’s announcement Thursday...
In Morris’s view, the World Bank’s assurances at that time that it would support humanitarian relief operations for people displaced by the conflict ignored the culpability of the government in committing violence against an ethnic minority, treating the situation, “as if it were a natural disaster.”
Even with its decision to withhold the $200 million loan until conditions improve, the bank’s shareholders are not doing enough to put pressure on Myanmar’s government, Morris said.
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