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.
View all articles
View all articles
View all articles
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Environment
Analysis
IMF surveillance and climate change transition risks
New briefing by ActionAid USA and the Bretton Woods Project highlights research showing that IMF policy advice has undermined a just energy transition since the Paris Agreement was signed.
Environment
Analysis
World Bank’s plans for Indonesia: Delayed action on climate and continued coal and gas support
Indonesian civil society have raised concerns that the World Bank is promoting gas and supporting further coal expansion in its new Country Partnership Framework.
Other news
Gender
Analysis
The IMF and Gender Equality: Operationalising Change
This briefing raises critical questions on the latest developments in the IMF’s approach to gender.
Accountability
Analysis
Bretton Woods Project submission on the DFID White Paper
In a submission the the DFID white paper consultation, we set out the significant change needed at the World Bank and IMF to bring them into line both with international norms and with UK policy, in order to improve their contribution to sustainable development. In this submission we outline changes needed in: IFI governance; IFI conditionality policies; IFI policies related to aid effectiveness; IFI policy on climate change; private-sector finance; and the financial sector's impact on devel
IFI governance
Analysis
G-7, civil society press for IMF, World Bank transparency reforms
The World Bank and the IMF have responded to complaints about their lack of transparency by issuing mountains of documentation and offering innumerable meetings and consultations. But critics are still not satisfied, pointing to the difficulty for people to find and interpret many of the documents produced, and to the opacity of the institutions’ key decision-making bodies.
Conditionality
Analysis
Comments on ‘IMF Staff Note on Macroeconomic Programming for Poverty Reduction’
Civil society commentary on the 'IMF Staff Note on Macroeconomic Programming for Poverty Reduction'
Conditionality
Analysis
Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs): A Rough Guide
The aim of this short briefing is to provide information to a non-specialist audience on some key aspects of PRSPs.
IFI governance
Analysis
Window of opportunity on IFI governance
Discussion of the key issues to be raised when the Development Committee discusses reforms to the governance structure of the IFIs at the Spring Meetings this April.
Conditionality
Analysis
Blinding with Science or encouraging debate?
This report examines the powerful roles of the World Bank in determining the policies chosen by PRSP countries. It provides a critical assessment of the current moves to introduce Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA), and recommends taking further action to break the Bank’s near monopoly on development analysis and control of policy formulation process.
Finance
Analysis
Taken for granted? US Proposals to Reform the World Bank’s IDA Examined
US debt campaigners are siding with the Bush administration against European leaders and other NGOs over a key source of finance for the world’s 79 poorest countries. Discussions on the pros and cons of providing grants instead of loans through IDA appear deadlocked (March 2002).
Featured briefings
19 July 2023
The Bretton Woods Observer: Summer 2023
3 July 2023
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.
6 April 2023