Higher education in Asian countries and the role of international ...

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infrastructure development; from economic revival to the improvement of health and education,
and from poverty reduction to fighting corruption.
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) is a principal organ of the Bank
Group. As compared to other institutions of the Group, IBRD has the largest country
membership, biggest staff size, highest visibility, broadest mission and the largest volume of
lending. More than half of the Bank‟s annual lending is given by the IBRD alone. The
cumulative lending of IBRD is more than $US 420 billion. It has invested in thousands of
projects in its member countries since its inception. Both wings of the Bank generate money
through multiple resources: IBRD raises money through interests on the credit given to member
countries, services charges and the sale of AAA-rated bonds in international financial markets
while IDA receives contributions from wealthier member governments and repayments of the
loans.
The World Bank provides two types of assistance for capacity building: financial assistance and
technical assistance. The financial assistance is in the form of loans and grants (, which is too
little for Asian countries). Usually the World Bank provides technical assistance for better
outputs of the projects for, which the Bank‟s lending is approved. Technical assistance provided
by the Bank can be of varied nature; from expert opinion to project evaluation studies; and can
focus different stages from project designing to implementation and beyond of that. The
principal objective of such assistance is to improve capacity and efficiency the person
responsible for the project management and implementation of the project. Such type of
assistance also contributes to better utilization of resources and ultimately enhances the success
rate of the project. The Bank also support and encourage policy reforms in the countries
pertaining to socio-economic development. The Bank uses other means as well to develop the
capacities of the stakeholders both in the low and high income countries. Such initiatives
include; publications, country reports, evaluation studies, conferences, workshops, research
studies, data repositories, national resource centers, eLibrary, web sites and web-based analytical
tools, newsletters, and dissemination of information, ideas and statistics.
The World Bank has it presence through country offices in more than one hundred member
states and 30% of them are in Asia. Along with its member states, the Bank maintains working
relations with IGOs as well in order to achieve its objectives. The Bank has official relations and
partnerships with fourteen UN-specialized agencies, seventeen international development