Britain Overtakes U.S. as Top World Bank Donor

BERLIN — The World Bank, overcoming misgivings about its direction and leadership, said Friday that it had raised $25.1 billion in aid for the world’s poorest countries, a record sum that includes donations by China and Egypt, nations that were once recipients of such aid.

For the first time, Britain overtook the United States as the biggest donor, a highly symbolic change given Washington’s traditional influence in choosing the bank’s president and charting its policies.

Bank officials said the change in rankings was partly caused by currency swings, since the dollar has dropped in value against European currencies. But the willingness of the United States to cede its top spot was clearly the most closely watched element of the negotiations here.

“The U.S. is stretching; Britain is stretching,” the bank’s president, Robert B. Zoellick, said in a conference call with reporters on Friday. Britain has “the advantage of a stronger currency, the pound,” he said.

The record overall donations were a coup for Mr. Zoellick, a diplomat and former trade negotiator in the Bush administration, who replaced Paul D. Wolfowitz as bank president in July. Mr. Wolfowitz left after a bitter ethics dispute that frayed ties with aid officials, particularly among European governments.

Britain’s pledge of $4.2 billion, and $2.2 billion from Germany — both big increases — suggested that the rift with Europe had been healed. German officials heaped praise on Mr. Zoellick, who skipped the negotiations to attend the United Nations meeting on climate change in Bali, Indonesia.

“The atmosphere has improved and become more trusting,” said Eric Stather, the German deputy minister for economic cooperation and development. “He has shown a clear vision for the future of the bank.”

Britain, the United States, Japan and Germany were the four largest donors among the 45 countries that pledged money to be used over the next three years. The total was 42 percent more than the bank raised in its previous campaign in 2005.

In all, the World Bank collected $41.6 billion for its International Development Association, or I.D.A., which provides grants and interest-free loans to more than 80 poor countries, roughly half of them in Africa.

Of that amount, $16.5 billion is from the World Bank’s internal funds, including previous donor pledges for financing debt forgiveness and contributions from two other World Bank divisions, the International Finance Corporation and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Mr. Zoellick pushed for these donations to jump-start the fund-raising effort, which he predicted would be arduous. The World Bank raised $32.1 billion in its last round of fund-raising. In addition to the declining dollar, countries are grappling with their own budget pressures. Moreover, the role of the International Development Association has come under question in development circles in recent years.

Wealthier nations increasingly prefer to channel aid through their own development agencies. They also tend to earmark large contributions for specific diseases, like AIDS, or specific development projects, like ones relating to climate change and the environment.

“It’s easier for governments to raise money for particular diseases,” Mr. Zoellick said. He has defended the International Development Association, noting that “this is the core funding that the poorest developing countries rely on.”

Mr. Zoellick spent a lot of time persuading what he called “middle income” countries to donate aid to poorer countries. China, because of its vast foreign-exchange reserves, was an obvious target. Its undisclosed donation, though small, was a victory for his diplomacy.

As for the United States, he played down its slide in the rankings. In percentage terms, he said, the American donation still represented a healthy increase from its last one. The United States Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., said the contribution of $3.7 billion was 30 percent higher than previous levels.

Development experts said the loss of the top ranking was symbolically important, even if Britain had been closing in on the United States for years. More significantly, though, it shows that Europe has thrown its support behind the World Bank.

“The Europeans were looking for a sense of direction and some confidence in where the bank was going,” said Nancy Birdsall, president of the Center for Global Development, a public policy organization in Washington. “This shows there is a renewed confidence.”