Roles of World Bank, IMF could become clearer within year

The separate roles of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund should be much clearer within a year, the World Bank president, Mr James Wolfensohn, has said.

The bank would probably end up concentrating on development issues, leaving the IMF to concentrate on fiscal and monetary policies, he said yesterday after meeting members of parliament from several European states.

"I expect greater clarity in the next 12 months on what the IMF and what the World Bank do . . . There has been no diminution in working together," he said.

His comments come less than a week after the new IMF managing director, Mr Horst Kohler, said he would be looking for more tightly defined roles for the two lenders. He also eased back from his predecessor's policy of pushing the IMF towards poverty alleviation.

Ties between the IMF and the World Bank, both based in Washington, have often been strained, with the World Bank publicly criticising IMF advice on financial problems and the IMF privately expressing doubts about the "patchwork" World Bank approach.

Mr Wolfensohn said the World Bank's chief concern was AIDS prevention, adding that the bank was likely to give $1 billion (€1.1 billion) to AIDS-related programmes in addition to the $1 billion it has given indirectly so far. He gave no timeframe for the funding.

Mr Wolfensohn said that in India and Africa the lethal disease was spreading rapidly and in some countries AIDS had reduced the life expectancy by about 17 years.

"AIDS has moved from a health issue to a development issue," he said. "The big question in Africa is less the funding . . . there's a lack of will [for AIDS prevention] and organisation."

Many African countries have no proper health care system and face cultural barriers which prevent them from alerting the population to the dangers of AIDS.

He said the World Bank estimated about 32 million people were infected with the HIV virus worldwide. In India, the number who were HIV-positive was expected to rise to 16 million in three years from about four to five million currently.