REFORMS IN THE INTERNATIONAL BANK FOR RECONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT: “ADJUSTMENT” TO THE CHANGING ECONOMIC REALITY

Abstract

Global financial system, which took shape after the formation of the Bretton Woods institutions, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, is forced to constantly transform in order to come in line with the economic and political realities . In the last decade, both the fund and the bank have experienced similar changes: their capitals have been increased and the votes of their main shareholders have been redistributed. The reform of the International Monetary Fund is widely covered in the Russian scientific literature, while innovations in the work of the World Bank have not been considered in detail. The purpose of the article is to analyze the processes taking place in the World Bank Group and in its key institution — the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), in connection with the increase in the equity capital of the IBRD through the issuance of additional shares. So, the article includes the description of the cycles of the abovementioned capital increase of the IBRD. Based on a comparison of the bank’s financial indicators for different years an assessment of the effectiveness of innovations and the revision of approaches to providing loans in terms of pricing policy and lengthening the borrowing period was carried out. As a result, it was concluded that the IBRD reforms not only helped the World Bank Group strengthen its position in the global financial system, securing its role as a leading development institution, but also became a catalyst in structuring projects in a way to pay more attention to the social sphere. The case of Uzbekistan described in the article as a success story of the modernized IBRD showed how ready the bank is to listen to its shareholders and borrowers. Taking into account the above, it is concluded that Russia needs to maintain its share in the capital of the IBRD, even despite all the difficulties it has to face due to the position of Western states.