RESULTS.org > Take Action > Global Monthly Action Archive > January 2008: Ask your senators and representative to sign letters to World Bank President

Print

January 2008: Ask your senators and representative to sign letters to World Bank President

Multilateral institutions like the World Bank name elimination of poverty as their overarching goal. But they focus exclusively on pursuing this goal through large-scale economic growth. This means that, as long as gross domestic product (GDP) is increasing in a country or a region, the World Bank feels that it is achieving its mission. This growth may be excruciatingly slow; it may be occurring without any benefits to the poor; it may even be occurring at the expense of the poor — but none of this persuades the World Bank to change its policies.

— Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Grameen Bank Managing Director
Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism

Professor Yunus has revolutionized banking for the very poor. One of his biggest accomplishments is proving to the world that the very poor can benefit from microfinance. Grameen Bank has 7.3 million borrowers, 100 percent of whom were below the poverty line when they took their first loan. Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and Jamii Bora, a microfinance institution in Kenya, have also proven that the very poorest of the poor — beggars — can be reached. Grameen has reached 100,000 beggars with an average loan size of $15. Jamii Bora started seven years ago with loans to 50 beggars and now has 170,000 savers and 60,000 borrowers.

Professor Yunus joined the January 2008 RESULTS Global National Conference Call to encourage RESULTS volunteers to continue to press their members of Congress to demand that the World Bank invest more in microfinance for the poorest. Please continue our collective work to reform the World Bank by urging your members of Congress to sign letters to World Bank President Robert Zoellick demanding that the World Bank learn from Professor Yunus and increase funding for microfinance for the poorest.

Call and Write to Your Senators and Representative Asking Them to Sign the Letter to World Bank President Zoellick

  • Introduce yourself and explain that you are a constituent.
  • Share your concern that although the World Bank’s stated mission is to ensure poverty reduction and improve living standards, the Bank is not investing enough in microfinance for the very poor.
  • Explain that although microfinance is a proven and cost-effective tool to help the very poor lift themselves out of poverty and improve the lives of their families, the Bank invests less than 1 percent of its budget in microfinance and does not track whether this money reaches the very poor.
  • Stress that even though the new president of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, recently met with members of the House of Representatives and promised to evaluate this concern, it is critical that senators weigh in to express their concern about the Bank’s lack of investment in microfinance for the poorest and the need for Bank reform.
  • Senate: If your senator signed the 2005 Senate letter to then World Bank President Wolfowitz, please thank him/her. Tell the staffer that Senators Bennett, Durbin, and Enzi have initiated a letter to President Zoellick asking him to direct at least half of the Bank’s microfinance funding to the very poor. Ask the staffer to urge his or her boss to sign the letter. To sign, tell your senators to contact Nate Graham in Bennett’s office (202) 224-5444 (Republicans) or Reema Dodin in Durbin’s office (202) 224-2854 (Democrats).
  • House: If your representative signed the July 2007 House letter to Mr. Zoellick and/or attended the October 2007 meeting, please thank him/her. Ask your representative sign the Holt-Carter follow-up letter. To sign, tell your representatives to contact Chris Gaston with Rep. Holt (D-NJ) at (202) 225-5801 (Democrats) or Chris Alsup with Rep. John R. Carter (R-TX) at (202) 225-3864 (Republicans). Tell the offices that you look forward to knowing whether the representative will be signing the letter and that you will contact them again to follow this request. The Holt-Carter House letter will close on January 25.

(Copies of letters and past signers and meeting attendees can be found under “Hot Legislative Issues” on the “Activist Info” page of our website.)

  • If you also send a letter, please fax or e-mail it, as postal delivery is delayed by several weeks.


For more background on these letters and previous letters, please see the December Action Sheet.