The Succesfulness of the Programs of the IMF and the World Bank

The IMF, international monetary fund, and the World Bank are two international institutions who try to help countries who face economic problems. They were established in 1945 at the end of the Second World War. The IMF has it focus on countries that have troubles with their balance of payment and international transactions. The World Bank has put its focus on the more structural problems. Next to economical programs they also provide programs on the more social side, e.g. health, nutrition, and sanitarian facilities. The IMF and the World Bank are not only available for the poor countries but also for the richer ones. Everyone who is member of these institutions can ask them for a loan, but of course the majority of all their funds goes the poorest countries. These loans are tied to reforms and severe criteria of how to improve the situation. Since there go enormous amount of money (billions per loan) to these countries, this thesis is concerned whether these loans do really help. Do they really make a difference? To focus lies on the low income countries and the research question will therefore be: can the IMF and the World Bank help low-income countries out of poverty? The outline for the thesis will look as follows. First the literature will be reviewed together with the theoretical framework. The third chapter will be about the IMF and the fourth chapter about the World Bank. The fifth chapter about the differences between the IMF and the World Bank. Followed by the case studies of the IMF and of the World Bank in the sixth and seventh chapter respectively. The eighth and last chapter will be the conclusion.