Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Understanding the Bond between the World Bank and its Largest Borrower
- Chapter One The First Half-Century: From Bretton Woods to India's Liberalization Era
- Chapter Two Remaining Relevant: The World Bank's Strategy for an India of States
- Chapter Three Reasserting Central Government Control, Reorienting Aid toward “Lagging States”
- Chapter Four A Bittersweet “Graduation” from Aid: Can IDA Hold on to India, and Will India Let It?
- Chapter Five Commencement: India's Changing Relationship to Global Development Assistance
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Introduction: Understanding the Bond between the World Bank and its Largest Borrower
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Understanding the Bond between the World Bank and its Largest Borrower
- Chapter One The First Half-Century: From Bretton Woods to India's Liberalization Era
- Chapter Two Remaining Relevant: The World Bank's Strategy for an India of States
- Chapter Three Reasserting Central Government Control, Reorienting Aid toward “Lagging States”
- Chapter Four A Bittersweet “Graduation” from Aid: Can IDA Hold on to India, and Will India Let It?
- Chapter Five Commencement: India's Changing Relationship to Global Development Assistance
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.
The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!”
John Godfrey Saxe (1873)India is large for the World Bank, but the World Bank is small for India.
World Bank Country Strategy for India, 2009–12Overview
India has been the World Bank's single largest borrower since the institution's inception over six decades ago. As of mid-2009, India's cumulative borrowing stood at around US$74 billion (Press Trust of India 2009) in combined assistance from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD, chartered at Bretton Woods in 1944) and the concessionary International Development Association (IDA, established in 1960 for the world's poorest countries).
No other country comes close to this level of cumulative borrowing from the World Bank (informally, “the Bank,” and comprising both IBRD and IDA). More populous China has borrowed more than India in some fiscal years, but it began borrowing from the Bank only in 1981. China passed the per capita income cutoff for access to IDA aid a full decade ago – “graduating,” in Bankspeak, to IBRD-only status. Altogether, it has borrowed about two-thirds as much from the Bank as India has.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- India and the World BankThe Politics of Aid and Influence, pp. xv - xlviiiPublisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2010