Briefings

Suralaya Power Station, Indonesia. Credit: Melvinas Priananda, Trend Asia.

Environment

Analysis

Coal not yet confined to the “old days” by World Bank Group

Despite the World Bank’s commitment to move away from funding coal, a series of loopholes in its financial intermediary lending remain that will continue to allow finance to support coal power projects.

13 December 2023 | At Issue
Tunisians demonstrate for peace, freedom of speech and for a secular state ahead of elections for a Constituent Assembly on 23 October 2011, following the Tunisian Revolution. Credit: European Parliament

Finance

Analysis

The IMF and World Bank talk good governance, but walk with state- capturers

From South Africa to Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, the Bank and Fund have demonstrated they are not appropriate allies to address the scale of the crisis the world is facing, especially, given their record.

4 October 2023 | At Issue
Protest at COP27, celebrated in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt in November 2022. Credit: Oliver Kornblihtt / Mídia NINJA

Finance

Analysis

Assessing the Bretton Woods Institutions’ legacy

New collection of critical essays by authors from MENA and Sub-Saharan Africa do a retrospective of the BWIs involvement in the region, and the legacy of BWIs-supported unjust and extractionist world economic order.

3 October 2023 | Briefings

Finance

Analysis

Reconceptualising Special Drawing Rights as a tool for development finance

Briefing examines the shortcomings of the current SDRs allocation system and calls to reform SDRs to ensure their targeted, needs-based and equitable distribution. 

2 October 2023 | Briefings
Anti IMF loan protest in downtown, Cairo, 2012. Credit: Gigi Ibrahim / Flickr

Private Sector

Analysis

Financialisation and human rights in the Middle East and North Africa

This briefing explains how the IMF and World Bank have driven the financialisation of MENA states, and the pervasive negative effects this has had on the region’s societies and economies.

27 September 2023 | Briefings

Finance

Analysis

World Bank Group Evolution: Technical fixes or urgently needed reform?

World Bank Evolution Roadmap’s proposed superficial technical patches favouring the ‘logic’ of the market will likely fail to deliver the structural changes needed to support borrowing countries amidst global crises.

19 July 2023 | At Issue

Finance

Analysis

Civil Society calls for rethink of World Bank’s ‘evolution roadmap’ as part of wider reforms to highly unequal global financial architecture

Joint civil society briefing paper highlights concerns with the World Bank’s Evolution Roadmap, and provides a series of recommendations for a Roadmap that prioritises people, participation and the planet over profit and economic growth.

3 July 2023 | Briefings

IFI governance

Analysis

The IMF at the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: The need for governance reform

As the world celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is time the IMF’s shareholders use the opportunities provided by the anniversary and growing calls for reforms to the international financial architecture to redesign the IMF’s governance structures and programmes to ensure they are consistent with the commitments outlined in 1948 and with international human rights law.

5 April 2023 | At Issue

Finance

Analysis

The global financial architecture and the international debt crisis: An urgent call for reform

Influence of unreformed international financial institutions and creditor interests in debt solutions in low- and middle-income countries plagued by delay and ineffective when undertaken.

5 April 2023 | At Issue

Finance

Analysis

Monetary power and sovereign debt crises: The renewed case for a sovereign debt restructuring mechanism

The sovereign debt crises threatening states in the Global South are less about fiscal mismanagement and more about monetary power in the global currency hierarchy.

4 October 2022 | At Issue

Accountability

Analysis

Ending “absolute immunity” for the International Finance Corporation: The legacy of Jam v. IFC

EarthRights International examines how the Jam v. IFC case has helped to shift the landscape of accountability for international financial institutions by successfully challenging their claim to “absolute” immunity in US courts, potentially opening IFC up to further legal challenges in future.

21 July 2022 | At Issue

Private Sector

Analysis

How IMF and World Bank support for financialisation undermines human rights

IMF and World Bank policies and programmes work in tandem to expand and deepen financialisation, exacerbating the inequality crisis and harming human rights, financial stability and democratic governance

6 April 2022 | At Issue