International Business

Members Cool to Development Bank’s Fund Drive: Donor nations opened the annual meeting of the African Development Bank with demands that fundamental changes be made before they contribute more money to the 30-year-old organization. The bank, based in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, is asking 76 investor nations and organizations to commit themselves to increasing capital by $2.5 billion to build a fund of $22.3 billion. “We want major commitments before we agree to an increase in the share capital,” said Jeffrey Shafer, an assistant secretary for international affairs at the U.S. Treasury Department. He would not describe the reforms being sought, but a report on the bank’s operations criticized it as too bureaucratic, placing too much emphasis on the size of loans rather than quality, and lacking the means to evaluate accurately the risks involved in the development projects it finances.