2001年英语专八真题听力原文

2001年英语专八真题听力原文

听力原文

　　PART Ⅰ LISTENING COMPREHENSION?

　　SECTION A TALK?

　　The World Bank is one of the major channelsthrough which development aid is passed fromindustrial west to the poor and developing nations ofthe world. Its scale of operations is vast, which iswhy its lending program exceeds 7 billion a year, and its work force numbers about 4500. In thelast decade important changes have taken place in the size of the bank’s operations and in theemphasis of its lending policies. What immediately strikes anyone looking at the lending figuresover the last 10 years is the tremendous expansion in the bank’s loan program. This hasincreased from 1 billion to nearly 7 billion. The figure includes hard loans, which are made at thecurrent rate of interest, and soft loans, which are allocated to poor countries at concessionaryrates, and usually channel led through the bank’s affiliate—the International DevelopmentAssociation.?

　　In deciding the emphasis of its lending policy, the bank has had to take into account thepopulation explosion which is occuring in many poor countries of the world. It is a fact thatthe fertility rate of the poor countries is often very high. This is one of the main reasons forthese countries remaining poor. Unfortunately, wide-ranging country section programs do notusually reduce this r ate because this was a strong and deeply rooted tradition among people inthese countries to have big families. What the bank discovered was that there was a linkbetween economic and social development on the one hand, and reduction of fertility rate onthe other. Thus by improving basic health services, by introducing better nutrition, byincreasing literacy, and by promoting more even income distribution in a poor country, a lowerand more acceptable fertility rate will be achieved. This advanced thinking persuaded thebank to change its overall lending strategy, where previously it concentrated on the biginfrastructure project s, such as dams, roads and bridges. It begun to switch to projects whichdirectly improve the basic services of the country. There was a shift, if you like, from buildingdams to digging water holes to provide clear water.?

　　A second reason for the change of approach was that the bank has learned a big lesson fromprojects financed in the 1960s. Many of its major capital investment had scarcely touched thelives of urban and rural poor, nor have they created much employment. The project did nothave the trigger-down effect they have in industrialized countries. Instead the huge dams,steel-mills, and so on were left as monuments to themselves. This redirection of its lending hasmeant that the bank has tended to support labour intensive activities, rather than capita lintensive ones. Both rural and urban areas, there is a better chance in the first case, that itsfunds will benefit the bottom 40% of the country’s population. ?

　　The bank is also looking for ways of stimulating the growth of the small businesses in manydeveloping countries since this would create employment opportunities for people with lowerincomes. Being such a big, obvious target, the bank has often come under fire. For example,its officials have been taken to task for u sing Concord supersonic aircraft so frequently, about500 times in one year. Also, the large growth of the organization’s personnel has not pleasedsome critic s . A more substantial criticism has concerned the bank’s policy of setting annualtarget for lending to specified countries. This could lead to the deterioration in quality ofloans, some say. One former bank official has said, rather than encourage growth for its ownsake, the bank should begin to think of itself less as a foreign aid agency and more of a financialdeal-maker, combining official wit h the private resources for specific purposes.?

　　Finally, some people maintain that the impact of the projects funded by the bank has beenmodest. When one looks around the world at regions or countries that have successfullytransformed to industrial status, it seems that one should be aware of over-estimating thebank’s impact. Take Hong Kong for example. Its changes have come about as a result of tradeoffensive. The purpose has been to flood western market with low price goods made bycapitalist methods of production. The example seems to indicate that some regions canprosper without the bank’s aid as well.??

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