Focus on Eastern Europe and Central Asia (Bretton Woods Project)

Navigating complex dilemmas the Bank on violence, conflict and peace building

At Issue|Monica Stephen|16 September 2011|update 77|url

The World Development Report 2011: Conflict, Security and Development is shifting the language of international policy on supporting peace and development in fragile and conflict-affected countries. Monica Stephen of International Alert examines how the World Bank's operations need to adjust to support peace and development. read article...

Ukraine protests against IMF policies

News|Bretton Woods Project|14 September 2011|update 77|url

In early July, thousands of protesters took to the streets in the Ukrainian capital Kiev to try to block pension reforms promised as part of the country's IMF loan. read article...

New report on Bank's role in controversial dam

article|Bretton Woods Project|5 April 2011|update 75|url

In a March briefing, US NGO Bank Information Center (BIC) detailed major risks surrounding the construction of the Rogun mega-dam in Tajikistan, for which the Bank is funding environmental and social impact assessments. read article...

World Bank-backed child labour in Uzbek agriculture

News|Bretton Woods Project|18 February 2011|update 74|url

The Bank's support of agricultural in Uzbekistan has landed it in hot water suggesting that it does not take seriously the social implications of such lending. read article...

The IMF's new conditionality Crafting change, lessons from Eastern Europe

At Issue|Daniela Gabor|18 February 2011|update 74|url

While the 2007-2010 crisis offered the International Monetary Fund an unexpected opportunity to demonstrate that it was serious about changing its emergency lending practices, Daniela Gabor argues that in Eastern Europe the Fund ended up pushing unnecessary fiscal austerity and privileging private financial interests. read article...

IMF conditions stoke controversy, prompt strikes

News|Bretton Woods Project|22 September 2009|update 67|url

The IMF's loans across Europe, from Iceland to Romania are stoking deep controversy and protest. Resistance is building from civil society aganist the austerity benig imposed. read article...

Hungary and the IMF: indebted future

Comment|Zsolt Boda|10 July 2009|update 66|url

In Hungary, the IMF seems to be modestly improving its flexibility and conditionality compared to its dreadful practices in previous decades. However, a still distinctively neoliberal vision of how economies work is in play attributable as much to the Hungarian government as to the IMF. The deficits of democracy and poor economic governance in Hungary make our indebted future increasingly bleak. read article...

Clarification: Armenia corruption Allegations

News|Bretton Woods Project|23 April 2009|update 65|url

We would like to appologise for any confusion due to an article in Update 62 on water privatisation. In discussing a Bank project in Yerevan, Armenia, it may not have been clear that all statements about tendering the parliamentary commission, water services, and project material were allegations from the Government Accountability Project (GAP) report. read article...

Karachaganak: IFC still out of compliance

News|Bretton Woods Project|16 February 2009|update 64|url

The International Financial Corporation is still out of compliance more than 6 months after findings by the Office of Compliance, Advisor/Ombudsman (CAO) found it to have disregarded its own regulation of toxic chemical emissions at Karachaganak Oil and Condensation Field in Western Kazakhstan. read article...

Pipe dreams shattered in Georgia

News|Manana Kochladze|26 September 2008|update 62|url

The World Bank and others have tried to convince the region's poor that oil pipelines in the Caucuses would bring economic prosperity and strengthen democracy in the region. However, this Caspian oil game is partly to blame for the increased poverty, conflict and misery that now plagues the thousands of citizens displaced in the August conflict in Georgia. read article...

Eastern Europe and Central Asia

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