This year, the UK government became the largest contributor to the World Bank's lending arm for poor countries. This December in Berlin, the UK government pledged to provide the World Bank's International Development Association (IDA) with over £2 billion in aid over the next three years. This represents a forty-nine per cent increase on previous years.

Oxfam GB welcomes the UK government's commitment to provide new and vital funds for poor countries, but is extremely disappointed that the UK missed its chance to press for much-needed reform in the World Bank. The World Bank is still making some of its aid to poor countries conditional on them implementing controversial policies that can destroy development opportunities for poor people. For example, the Bank ensures that essential public services such as healthcare and water services are privatised, putting these vital facilities out of the reach of the poorest people.

Oxfam GB supporters, along with other UK campaigners, called on the UK Secretary for Development, Douglas Alexander, to make some of the UK's payments to the World Bank provisional on the Bank giving aid without attaching it to economic policy conditions. Sadly, the UK failed to use its financial contribution to influence this change. Norway, on the other hand, withheld 25 per cent of its financial contributions to the World Bank on the condition of greater reform in this area.