Cover Report: CONFLICT OF INTEREST? IFC's US$140m splash in BSP http://www.islandsbusiness.com/islands_business/index_dynamic/containerNameToReplace=MiddleMiddle/focusModuleID=19312/overideSkinName=issueArticle-full.tpl

It wasn’t too long ago that a partnership between the World Bank and its sister organisation the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in the deregulation of the telecommunications sector in some countries in the region was frowned upon. Critics called it a ‘conflict of interest’. Through multi-million dollar loans, the IFC—the World Bank’s private sector financing arm—was funding the Pacific expansion of Irish-owned Digicel.At the same time, the World Bank was offering policy and technical assistance to governments in the region interested in opening up their telecommunications market.Words like “double standard” and “inappropriate” were used to describe their involvement in the Pacific’s telecommunication market.