Bretton Woods Update No.65 March/April 2009PDF version | At Issue PDF | text version | versión en español IFC's role in Yemen miningNews|17 April 2009 Trends in the relationship between World Bank and IFC technical assistance policies and the IFC's investment portfolio raise interesting questions over possible conflicts of interest. Disclosure at the IFC remains opaque making specific details of projects and policies hard to come by. read article... World Bank under fire over support for private sector health careNews|17 April 2009 The debate over the World Bank's support for private sector investment in health care provision in developing countries is in the limelight again. A new report by Oxfam asserts that while the private sector can play a role in health care, evidence shows that only scaling up of private sector provision of services is likely to deliver health benefits for poor people. read article... G20 ‘trillion’ dollar magic trick Reforms remain house of cardsNews|3 April 2009 
To great fanfare, the G20 announced a $1.1 trillion global package, which will actually deliver less than half that amount in new or guaranteed resources. Meanwhile issues of fundamental economic reform were left off the agenda. read article... World Bank and IMF launch disclosure reviewsNews|23 April 2009 Civil society groups, painfully aware of information access problems at the World Bank and IMF, hope this year's reviews of transparency and disclosure will bring radical improvement. read article... REDD and the rights of Indigenous Peoples Ensuring equity and participation in World Bank fundsAt Issue|17 April 2009 One of the most contentious issues under discussion in current climate change debates is how to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) by ensuring protection of the world's rainforests. Mrinalini Rai of the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change argues that this initiative, heavily backed by the World Bank among others, raises questions about how to ensure fair compensation to those developing countries that undertake a commitment to such reductions. read article... World Bank still supporting carbon-intensive futureNews|17 April 2009 The World Bank Group will kick off the revision of its energy sector strategy, which is to take place during fiscal year 2010 with an issues paper due out this autumn. US based NGO Bank Information Center (BIC) recently published World Bank Energy Sector Lending: Encouraging the World's Addiction to Fossil Fuels, a study on the World Bank's approach to energy sector investments. The assessment finds that important gains in renewable energy and energy efficiency in recent years still do not compensate for the highly imbalanced financing in favour of fossil fuel development. read article... Ghana's off-shore nightmareComment|17 April 2009 The IFC ignored due process requirements mandated by the laws of Ghana in the case of the Jubilee oil field project and should not have considered the loan applications at the board. In so dong the IFC is encouraging the infringement of the basic rules of governance and transparency. read article... World Bank's "environment" loan to Brazil: for what?News|17 April 2009 Once again the World Bank is lending money to Brazil, but without adequate transparency or participation of civil society. read article... IMF emergency loans: Greater flexibility to overcome the crisis?News|17 April 2009 Despite promising rhetoric, new IMF loans show no greater flexibility in fiscal and monetary policies because of the current crisis. The Fund is still pushing tighter fiscal policy and single-digit inflation. read article... The IMF's special drawing rights (SDRs)Inside the inst|1 April 2009 The special drawing right (SDR) is an international reserve asset, created by the IMF in 1969 to supplement the existing official reserves of member countries. read article... Not much on offer for poor countries to counter the crisisNews|17 April 2009 The world's poor are being hard hit by a crisis for which they are not responsible. Low-income countries will face a financing gap of hundreds of billions of dollars this year. More than $2 trillion have been found to boost Northern economies and emerging markets. Yet richer countries have committed just over one twentieth of the additional development finance required to compensate low-income countries for the shock they face resulting from this crisis. read article... IMF: Bigger but not much nicerNews|17 April 2009 World leaders agreed at the G20 to treble the size of the IMF's resources, but critics worry about strengthening the Fund without fundamental reform of its governance and conditionality. read article... Latin America: Return to the IMF or reinforce alternatives?News|17 April 2009 Today, Latin American countries are faced with the option of returning to international and regional financial institutions - IMF, World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) - or rejecting the failed recipes of the 1990s in order to build and reinforce alternatives that allow them to face the current crisis. read article... US Congress votes against funding World Bank climate fundNews|17 April 2009 In the midst of intensifying global discussions on climate change due to culminate in Copenhagen in December, the US congress voted not to fund the World Bank's Clean Technology Fund (CTF) for 2009. read article... DFID snuggling up to the Bank?News|14 April 2009 In February the UK Department for International Development (DFID) belatedly released its latest annual report on its relationship with the World Bank. This continues a tradition which sees these reports appear at irregular intervals. As with previous annual reports there is a marked absence of the critiques heard from the Banks Independent Evaluation Group, the Parliament's International Development Committee or civil society for the period reviewed. read article... IFIs: Powerful bodies, little accountabilityNews|17 April 2009 Efforts to reform the IMF and World Bank's governance structures are coming to a head, but they may not go far enough. read article... Other stories in this issue
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Update issues
No.71, Jun/Jul 2010 | PDF
Επίκεντρο η Ελλάδα (Greek language articles)
Recent briefings & reports
Submission on the World Bank and IFC to DFID's multilateral aid review 2 September 2010
Update on the Climate Investment Funds: July 2010 summary 27 July 2010
Social insecurity: The financialisation of healthcare and pensions in developing countries 16 July 2010
Human rights (the World Bank way) 18 June 2010
Clean energy targets for the World Bank: Time for a recount 14 May 2010
IMF mandate needs fundamental rethink 11 May 2010 Newswire |
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