PRETORIA, Nov 5 (AFP) - The World Bank has adopted a "wait and see"
policy
on Ivory Coast, bank president James Wolfensohn told reporters in Pretoria
Sunday.
   Wolfensohn, who spent three days in closed-door talks with South African
government leaders and economists, was speaking five days after the bank
sent
a letter to the Ivorian authorities announcing that it would "suspend from
midnight Washington time, October 31, 2000 (0500 GMT last Wednesday) the
rights of the republic of Ivory Coast to make any supplementary withdrawals
concerning institutional development fund projects and the suspension of
withdrawal rights for existing projects."
   "We are waiting and seeing what's going on in the Cote d'Ivoire,"
Wolfensohn told a press conference.
   "Our missions are over there to see what we can do to try and continue
build the programmes.
   "We're trying to see how it is that we can be supportive and we are open
to
talks with them."
   A total of 171 people died in the political, ethnic and religious
violence
that flared in the Ivory Coast after last month's presidential elections,
the
west African country's new government said last Thursday.
   The elections ended with the flight of strongman General Robert Guei and
the installation of challenger Laurent Gbagbo, leader of the Ivorian Popular
Front, despite appeals from world leaders for new elections to allow the
inclusion of candidates who were unable to take part in the October 22 poll.
   pbl/hn/nb

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