Methods

For these articles, which attempt a critical portrayal of the bank, I visited its headquarters in Washington, DC, and interviewed leading policy makers, including the former director of the health, nutrition, and population sector, Richard Feacham, as well as the World Bank's vice president for Africa, Callisto Modavo. I interviewed bank employees and visited bank projects in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan, where my fluency in the local language was invaluable in speaking with politicians, civil servants, health workers, representatives of non-governmental organisations, journalists, and patients. I carried out a Medline search for articles under the heading “World Bank,” and read a wide selection of World Bank and government documents, from public policy documents to country reports.