“These NGOs funded by the World Bank, Ford, and so on — why are they participating, mediating what public policy should be? . . . The World Bank runs 600 anti-corruption programs just in places like Sub-Saharan Africa. Why is the World Bank that interested in anti-corruption? I looked at five of the major points they made: . . . (1) increasing political accountability; (2) strengthening civil society participation; (3) creating a competitive private sector; (4) instituting restraints on power; (5) improving public-sector management. . . . These people are all involved in increasing the penetration of international capital. And so it explains why, at a time when we’re also worried about corruption, the major parts of what corruption meant in terms of corporate corruption, in terms of how NGOs and corporations are taking over the traditional functions of government, that whole things was left out. This is a copybook World Bank agenda.” — Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy is a writer in India. This interview was first broadcast by CNN-IBN on 29 August 2011; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes. The text above is an edited partial transcript of the interview. Cf. Arundhati Roy, “I’d Rather Not Be Anna” (The Hindu, 21 August 2011).
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