Directions : Read the passage carefully and answer the questions given below…
2020
Directions : Read the passage carefully and answer the questions given below it.
China’s rising power is based on its remarkable economic success. Shanghai’s overall economy is currently growing at around 13% per year, thus doubling in size every five or six years. Everywhere there are start-ups, innovations, and young entrepreneurs hungry for profits. In a series of high level meetings between Chinese and African officials, the advice that the African leaders received from the Chinese was sound, and more practical than they typically get from the World Bank. Chinese officials stress the crucial role of public investments, especially in agriculture and infrastructure, to lay the basis for private sector-led growth. In a hungry and poor rural economy, as China was in the 1970s and as most of Africa is today, a key starting point is to raise farm productivity.
Farmers need the benefits of fertilizer, irrigation and high yield seeds, all of which were a core part of China’s economical take off. Two other equally critical investments are also needed: roads and electricity, without which there cannot be a modern economy. Farmers might be able to increase their output, but it won’t be able to reach the cities, and the cities won’t be able to provide the countryside with inputs.
The government has taken pains to ensure that the electricity grids and transportation networks reach every village in China.
China is prepared to help Africa in substantial ways in agriculture, roads, power, health and education. And that is not an empty boast. Chinese leaders are prepared to share new high yield rice varieties, with their African counterparts and, all over Africa, China is financing and constructing basic infrastructure.
This illustrates what is wrong with the World Bank. The World Bank has often forgotten the most basic lessons of development, preferring to lecture the poor and force them to privatise basic infrastructure, which is untenable, rather than to help the poor to invest in infrastructure and other crucial sectors. The Banks’s failure began in the early 1980s when under the ideological sway of them American President and British Prime Minister it tried to get Africa and other poor regions to cut back or close down government investments and services.
For 25 years, the bank tries to get governments out of agriculture, leaving impoverished peasants to fend for themselves. The result has been a disaster in Africa, with farm productivity stagnant for decades. The bank also pushed for privatization of national health systems, water utilities, and road and power networks, and has grossly underfinanced these critical sectors.
This extreme free-market ideology, also called “structural adjustment”, went against the practical lessons of development successes in China and the rest or Asia. Practical development strategy recognizes that public investments - in agriculture, health, education, and infrastructure- are necessary complements to private investments. The World Bank has instead wrongly seen such vital public investments as an enemy of private sector development. Whenever the banks’ ideology failed, it has blamed the poor for corruption, mismanagement, or lack of initiative.
Instead of focusing its attention on helping the poorest countries to improve their infrastructure, there has been a crusade against corruption. The good news is that African governments are getting the message on how to spur economic growth and are getting crucial help from China and other partners that are less wedded to extreme free market ideology than the world Bank.
They have declared their intention to invest in infrastructure, agriculture modernization, public health, and education. It is clear the Bank can regain its relevance only if it becomes practical once again, by returning its focus to financing public investments in priority sectors. If that happens, the Bank can still do justice to the bold vision of a world of shared prosperity that prompted its creation after World War II.
What is the advice given by the author to the World Bank?
- A.
Reduce the influence of Africa and Britain in its functioning.
- B.
Adopt a more practical ideology of structural adjustment.
- C.
Change its ideology to one encouraging both public and private sector investment in basic infrastructure.
- D.
Support China’s involvement in developing Africa.
- E.
None of the above
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: C
Concept
A 'main-idea / author's-opinion' comprehension question is answered ONLY from what the passage itself argues, never from outside knowledge. The correct choice must restate the author's own central recommendation; any option that contradicts the passage, names something the author criticises, or addresses a side detail is wrong even if it sounds reasonable.
Application
The author's whole critique is that the World Bank failed by pushing an extreme free-market line - the 'structural adjustment' policy that forced poor countries to cut government investment and privatise basic infrastructure. The author then states the corrective principle directly: 'public investments - in agriculture, health, education, and infrastructure - are necessary complements to private investments,' and closes that the Bank 'can regain its relevance only if it becomes practical once again, by returning its focus to financing public investments in priority sectors.'
So the advice to the World Bank is to abandon its purely-private, anti-government stance and adopt an approach in which BOTH public and private investment in basic infrastructure are encouraged - exactly what the choice 'Change its ideology to one encouraging both public and private sector investment in basic infrastructure' captures.
Cross-check / Contrast
'Adopt a more practical ideology of structural adjustment' fails because structural adjustment IS the free-market ideology the author blames for the Bank's failure, not a fix.
'Reduce the influence of Africa and Britain in its functioning' fails because the author never asks the Bank to curb any country's influence; the Britain reference is only a historical aside about the 1980s.
'Support China's involvement in developing Africa' fails because praising China is the author's illustration of good practice, not a piece of advice directed at the Bank.
'None of the above' fails because a directly supported option exists.