World Bank ‘Fighting Poverty’ Financing Billionaires’ Luxury Hotels

World Bank Lives Large Amid Slum

In Accra, not far from the new Mövenpick, the IFC’s posh offices—sporting a lawn, flowers, and private parking—sit amid a slum, surrounded by an imposing concrete wall topped by coils of barbed wire. The only paved part of the road to the IFC is directly in front of the guarded complex, which has no sign announcing its identity. The rest of the road is a winding, dusty dirt path filled with potholes and surrounded by hovels erected out of battered metal or wood.

Barefoot children sit amid goats and roving chickens, on ground dotted by garbage and litter. Women cook tiny fish strung onto sticks over an open fire, ignoring the near-100-degree temperatures. I approached them one day in July, and some of them said they had lived there for 15 years. When asked whether they knew what the World Bank is, they said no. When told that it fights poverty, many of them laughed.

“We need help, and we know there are places that help,” said one woman who was cooking as two young boys clung to her legs. “But we have never heard of them.”

Cheryl Strauss Einhorn is a financial journalist and adjunct professor at Columbia Business School.

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