The World Bank puts out many interesting publications but out on the ground, its legacy is one of failure. Remarkably, 65% to 70% of World Bank projects in Africa fail. Its efforts to fight corruption were fundamentally undermined this year by the Bank’s own board in its decision to remove Paul Wolfowitz (based on spurious accusations). As such, governmental donors to the Bank need to question whether their funds would be better spent through their own national aid agencies.

The Bank’s confused focus keeps becoming ever more apparent. Now the Bank has used its budget - supposedly aimed at fighting poverty - to enter the software business, competing directly against Google. To help people read blogs, it’s produced an RSS reader called The BuzzMonitor. With Google et al providing excellent readers for free, do we really need development aid - given by imposed-upon taxpayers - being spent helping people read blogs?