POOREST NATIONS GET A BOOST

President Bush has agreed to a major replenishment of funding for the International Development Assn., the soft-loan arm of the World Bank that helps the poorest of the poor. It is a welcome implementation of his promise to assist the developing nations, with a particular emphasis on sub-Sahara Africa.

Combined with earlier commitments from all of the other major donors, the American support will enable IDA to provide $14.5 billion over the three-year period commencing next July 1, an amount equal to the existing program plus inflation. The United States’ share will be about 21%, or $1.06 billion each of the three years.

The replenishment agreement will be ratified Thursday at a meeting in Washington. The agreement will include increased emphasis on country performance, a further incentive for nations to implement the economic reforms that now appear essential to development. And it will include increased emphasis on the sustainability of development, including protection of the environment. At least half of the fund will go to Africa.

The IDA commitment of the Bush Administration is reassuring after a disappointing response to increasing the quota of the International Monetary Fund, another of the international financial institutions playing a vitally important role in development of African, Asian and Latin American nations.

The Treasury Department has proposed an increase of only 35% in the IMF quota, despite agreement by virtually all of the other members to an increase of at least 67% and despite persuasive arguments for a 100% increase from the managing director of the IMF, Michel Camdessus. The 35% proposal may represent only a bargaining position. But the United States has the power to force a lower quota on the membership, and that in turn could handicap the important role that the IMF is playing in Third World development and debt-crisis relief, and in sorting out the enormously complex economic problems of Eastern Europe, particularly Poland and Hungary.

Congressional approval of the IDA replenishment is required. There already is widespread support as members increasingly come to understand the competent and effective role that IDA has played in helping the poorest of the nations for the past 29 years.