The bank's governance structure has denied Africa a voice for many decades, but utterly appalling is the deeply entrenched bias against black people in the World Bank's human resources practices.
This article is about the twin evils that have bedeviled the World Bank's relationship with Africa as a continent and Africans as human beings. The first is structural: it concerns a 'democracy deficit' in the bank's governance architecture that has denied Africa a voice in the institution's boardroom. The second is cultural: it involves institutional discrimination in the day-to-day management of the bank that has demeaned and dehumanised people of African origin for decades. Dealing with the cultural malice requires first addressing the structural ills.
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