[afro-nets] Update on World Bank failures to fight malaria (4)

["Philip Coticelli" <pcoticelli@gmail.com>]

Update on World Bank failures to fight malaria (4)
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Barry,

You wrote, "They [AEI] are also notorious for misquoting, quoting out of context, misconstruing, and using unscientifically sound research techniques."

If you expect your remarks to be taken seriously by sensible people and not dismissed as blanket skepticism of organizations that don't support the Population Council's agenda, you should provide evidence.  Without it this message is a bald, ideological swipe and certainly not a "scientifically sound" criticism.  Moreover it had nothing to do with institutional accountability for malaria control spending, which was the subject of the paper.  Your only topical complaint was itself taken out of context:

You wrote, "A good example:  In complaining about Bank biases, they cite an anonymous source:  'We all know that project concepts are most strongly influenced by the expertise of those managing the projects.' Question: What respectable project doesn't rely in part on the expertise of those managing the projects?"

The point of the paragraph, taken as a whole (below), clearly argues that disease control specialists employed by the Bank are tailoring projects to disease control instead of health systems financing, which is the Bank's historical area of expertise and comparative advantage.  You can agree or disagree, but at least give the argument fair play:

The paper states, "The Bank's systems-building operations are overseen by the Health, Nutrition and Population (HNP) division and cover lending, analysis, and technical assistance. HNP could be more of a valuable resource for developing countries but many of its staff members are talented people in the wrong jobs, such as medical doctors or epidemiologists who really belong at the WHO.9 As a Bank economist anonymously told me, "We all know that project concepts are most strongly influenced by the expertise of those managing the projects."10 Thus with an influx of epidemiologists and medical doctors to the Bank, disease control programs have been increasingly selected to the detriment of projects favoring systems development; and it's the latter that many countries require most."

Do you have any other specific complaints about the quotes, context, and research techniques used in THIS particular paper?  I'm sure we can have a reasonable discussion on the subject.

Philip
mailto:pcoticelli@gmail.com