While the bank lends only to governments, its private-sector arm, the International Finance Corporation, encourages private investment in developing countries by taking stakes in their projects, offering a measure of protection against abuses by local officials.

She worked there in international finance and, in 1999, moved to the International Financial Corporation, a private-sector arm of the World Bank.

The original Equator Principles adopted most of the guidelines set by the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank's private-sector arm.

The bank's private-sector arm has been obliged to slow its pace of new lending in the last two years for lack of capital, said the World Bank official who insisted on anonymity.

He was a principal financial officer at the International Finance Corporation, the private-sector arm of the World Bank, where he was responsible for IFC's local currency financing programs in Asia and Eastern Europe.

In August 1997 the municipal government decided to bring the city's water system under some form of private management and approached the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private-sector arm of the World Bank Group, for advice.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Bank's private-sector arm, can make loans to the private sector as well as equity investments.

To the Editor: The International Finance Corporation, the private-sector arm of the World Bank, is currently drafting performance standards for the operations it finances.

Once the shares start trading on April 4th, the public will own 12.4% of Astra; the International Finance Corporation (IFC, the World Bank's private-sector arm) 5.4%; and the controlling Soeryadjaya family the remaining 82.2%.

The IDB's private-sector arm also provided loans to the private electricity distribution companies Ede Sur and Ede Norte in 1999.