The Dilemma of the African Development Bank: Does Governance Matter for the Long-Run Financing of the Mdbs?
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The Dilemma of the African Development Bank: Does Governance Matter for the Long-Run Financing of the MDBs? Nancy Birdsall Abstract Does governance matter for the long-run financing of the multilateral development banks? The structure of governance of the legacy MDBs (the World Bank and the four major regional development banks founded in the twentieth century) ideally should minimize any tradeoff between the confidence of creditor shareholding countries, on which an MDB’s own financing depends, and the sense of ownership, legitimacy, and trust of borrowing countries, on which the MDB’s effectiveness in supporting development in those borrowing countries depends. Among the five legacy MDBs, the African Development Bank stands out as the one where the governance arrangements, including the distribution of shares and votes between borrowers and non- borrowers, most favors borrowers. Indicators of the AfDB’s relative financial strength (a measure of creditworthiness based on sovereign members’ vote shares, and a measure of the capacity of each bank’s members to engage in collective action or cooperation in raising financing) indicate that its current governance is likely to make it less competitive than its sister MDBs in sustaining creditor (or “donor”) confidence in its operations over the long run, and thus in raising substantial capital and concessional resources. The governance problem is most obvious in the case of the African Development Bank’s African Development Fund, which today has only about 15 percent of the resources the World Bank has for Africa. The creditors of the AfDB have sufficient control to ensure the Bank’s financial soundness (and AAA rating), but a collective action constraint in pushing for reforms in the Bank’s operations. The paper concludes with ideas for long-run reform of governance at the African Development Bank, modeled more closely on the governance of the Inter-American Development Bank. Working Paper 498 November 2018 www.cgdev.org The Dilemma of the African Development Bank: Does Governance Matter for the Long-Run Financing of the MDBs? Nancy Birdsall Center for Global Development Thanks for comments to Alan Gelb, Scott Morris, Mark Plant, Masood Ahmed, Richard Manning, and Annalisa Prizzon; and to Kyle Navis and Mallika Snyder for expert and patient help in compiling surprisingly unharmonized financial information on the multilateral development banks. On the financial information, readers should be aware of the difficulty of making systematic comparisons across the MDBs, given their use of different terms in financial balance sheets and in their annual reports; comments on errors in these comparisons are welcome, to [email protected]. The Center for Global Development is grateful for contributions from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in support of this work. Nancy Birdsall, 2018. “The Dilemma of the African Development Bank: Does Governance Matter for the Long-Run Financing of the MDBs?.” CGD Working Paper 498. Washington, DC: Center for Global Development. https://www.cgdev.org/ publication/dilemma-afdb-does-governance-matter-long-run-financing-mdbs Center for Global Development The Center for Global Development works to reduce global poverty 2055 L Street NW and improve lives through innovative economic research that drives Washington, DC 20036 better policy and practice by the world’s top decision makers. Use and dissemination of this Working Paper is encouraged; however, reproduced 202.416.4000 copies may not be used for commercial purposes. Further usage is (f) 202.416.4050 permitted under the terms of the Creative Commons License. www.cgdev.org The views expressed in CGD Working Papers are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the board of directors, funders of the Center for Global Development, or the authors’ respective organizations. Contents Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 1 Section 1. Background on Financing and Governance of Selected MDBs ............................ 3 Financial indicators ...................................................................................................................... 3 Governance .................................................................................................................................. 6 Section 2. Does Voting Structure Matter for Long-Run Financial Strength? ........................ 9 Creditworthiness .......................................................................................................................... 9 Collective Action Capability..................................................................................................... 11 Section 3. Why Is the African Development Fund So Small? ................................................ 15 The African Development Fund: Now Six to Seven Times Smaller than the World Bank’s IDA in Africa ................................................................................................................ 16 History Matters: Why Africans Cite Their Own Bank as Their Preferred, Trusted Partner ......................................................................................................................................... 17 Confidence of Creditors vs. Trust of Borrowers; Control of Creditors vs. Ownership 19 Concluding Reflections ................................................................................................................. 20 On the African Development Bank ....................................................................................... 20 On Governance at the MDBs: In the Long-Run ................................................................. 21 References ........................................................................................................................................ 24 Appendix 1. Multilateral Development Bank Acronyms ......................................................... 28 Appendix 2. Constructing an Average Credit Score, Weighted by Vote Share.................... 29 Appendix 3. Ideas for Addressing the Collective Action Constraints of AfDB Governance, in the Spirit of an Open Memorandum to the Shareholders, with a Copy to the President .................................................................................................................................... 30 Appendix 4. Top Five Shareholders in Major MDBs by Voting Power, 2014 .................... 33 Appendix 5. Table of Collection Action Indicators ................................................................. 34 Introduction In this paper, I explore the question in the subtitle: Does governance matter for the long-run financing and effectiveness the multilateral development banks? Does the system of weighted voting that is peculiar to them (compared to the United Nations and other international institutions), and favors the high-income countries that are the banks’ main financiers, matter for their long-run access to financing and their effectiveness as development institutions? Does the voting structure, as well as other aspects of governance, involve some tradeoff between the confidence of creditor countries in the different MDBs,1 and the sense of ownership, legitimacy, and trust of borrowers? Is that tradeoff reflected in differences in the banks’ relative success in raising capital and contributions to sustain their operations, and with what implications for the different banks’ development effectiveness in borrowing countries? There is no way to definitively answer those questions. But among the five “legacy” MDBs founded in the 20th century, the African Development Bank stands out as the one where the governance arrangements most favor its regional borrowers. The dilemma of the African Bank is that its governance arrangements may be making it relatively less competitive than its sister banks in sustaining creditor (or “donor”) confidence over the long run, and thus in raising new capital and periodic contributions to allow for grants and cheap credits to the poorest countries in the region. Lack of competitiveness in raising financing a dilemma both for its borrowers and its high-income creditor shareholders, given their shared goal of optimal use of all available resources in promoting higher and more inclusive and sustained growth in Africa. To the extent that the African Bank has a current or potential comparative advantage in working with African countries in managing tough political reforms, for example, or in developing regional investments in energy or transport involving two and more countries in the region, its shareholders, almost all of which are also shareholders of the World Bank, may not be optimizing in the allocation of their support across the two banks.2 In considering the possible tradeoff between “confidence” of high-income creditors and ownership and “trust” of developing country borrowers, I focus primarily on a key aspect of governance, the distribution of votes between and among creditors and borrowers.3 I refer also to voting rules and customs for selection of the banks’ presidents, which vary among 1 See Appendix 1 for a list of the acronyms of multilateral development banks. 2 There is a larger question of why have the World Bank and the other MDBs in the first place, given that many of the MDBs’ borrowers, even some of the poorest, are now able to access the global capital market. On the other hand,