World Bank’s Pacific Islands appraisal sending wrong signal

THE recent appraisal the World Bank (WB) to some Pacific Islands from the World Bank’s 2015 Doing Business rankings is sending the wrong message claims the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG).

These countries include Palau, Solomon Islands and Vanutu who had last year undertaken reforms to encourage business growth. The rankings compare the ease of doing business across countries compared to the world’s ‘best practice’.

"The latest rankings again display the absurd contest between countries to see who can be the most pro-business without any regard for what that real costs are for social, environmental, cultural or human rights," PANG Coordinator Maureen Penjueli said.

"It rewards countries lowering of social, environmental, cultural and human rights safe guards, therefore allowing the exploitation of natural resources and human capital by foreign investors and local elites.

"The rankings act to pressure small islands states in the Pacific to implement the reforms that major industrial economies currently enact.

"These are the same economies that used many of the domestic policies which the World Bank’s rankings would frown upon to in fact develop and nurture their local industries and capacities," she added.

Since 2002, through this annual publication, the World Bank has been benchmarking and ranking countries according to "the ease of doing business.