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Abstract
The World Bank did not address urban issues for the first twenty-five years of its existence. However, a variety of political factors propelled the reluctant institution to address urban poverty in the early 1970s (Ayres, 1983; Ramsamy, 2006). The majority of the Bank's urban interventions during the 1970s concentrated on squatter upgrading and sites-and-services projects. While these programmes did have their problems, they represent the Bank's first attempt to address directly the needs of the urban poor, and offer them a framework to legitimise their rights to shelter and secure land tenure. By the mid-1980s, however, the Bank moved away from this approach and embraced a perspective that examined cities in their national macro-economic contexts. The Bank argued that the role of governments ought to be transformed from that of ‘providers’ of urban services, to that of ‘supporters’ or ‘enablers’ that serve as a liaison between the private sector and self-help groups (World Bank, 1991, 1993).
Notes
1. Interview with Fred C. King, Senior Country Officer, Southern Africa Department, World Bank, Citation1991.
2. Interview with Jeff Racki, 2001; Racki was a member of the first urban sector mission toZimbabwe and later the task manager for the World Bank's first urban project in Zimbabwe.
3. The Urban Sector Report (World Bank, Citation1985) was based on the findings of an Urban SectorMission which visited Zimbabwe from 19 August 1981 to 5 September 1981; the mission included P. Patel, J. Racki, G. Beier, J. Kozloswski, E. McKay and E. Bachrach.
4. Interview with Jeff Racki, 2001.
5. Interview with Middleton Nyoni, City Treasurer, Bulawayo City Council Zimbabwe, 2000.
6. Interview with Jeff Racki, 2001.
7. Interview with James Hicks, 2001; Hicks was Task Manager for the World Bank's second urbanproject, Urban II, and the Regional Development Project in Zimbabwe.
8. Interview with James Hicks, 2001.
9. Interview with Jeff Racki, 2001.
10. Interview with James Hicks, 2001.
11. Interview with James Hicks, 2001.
12. Interview with Colleen Butcher, 1993. Butcher was Resident Representative at the World BankMission in Harare, Zimbabwe.
13. Reported in ‘Major Disorders Cited In War Victims' Fund Claims’, Financial Gazette, 31 July 1997. Also reported in an article by Farai Makotsi ‘Ex-Combatants Cry Foul as Inquiry Unfolds’, The Financial Gazette, 28 August 1997.
14. See ‘Zim Ministers Looted War Veterans Fund’, electronic Mail and Guardian, 22 April 1997; available at www.mg.co.za
15. Interview with Colleen Butcher, 1993. Butcher was Resident Representative at the World BankMission in Harare, Zimbabwe.
16. Reported in Leadership Online, 8 December 2000, Vol. 18(1); available at www.millennium.co.za
17. Reported in the Sunday Times (London), 25 January 1998, ‘Mugabe's Unwanted Palace Taunts Food Rioters’.
19. Reported by the BBC, 20 June 2005.
20. Reported in Zwnews, 8 June 2005.
22. Reported by the BBC, 17 June 2005.
23. Reported in Mail and Guardian, 19 June 2005.
24. For an account of the World Bank's role in the policy choices of Zimbabwe, see Bond Citation(1998).