It is time for the IMF and World Bank to understand their own responsibility and decolonise their approach.
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Briefings
Knowledge
Analysis
Ease of Doing Business – what does it conceal?
As India has risen in the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business rankings, it has seen other key development indicators slip.
Gender
Analysis
Keeping the IMF accountable to women's rights and gender equality at the national level
New IMF gender guidance opportunity for civil society to keep its staff to account.
Finance
Analysis
Bretton Woods at 75
BWP publishes essay series reflecting on the legacy of 75 years of IMF and World Bank policies and power.
Gender
Analysis
The World Bank and gender equality: Development Policy Financing
Critical gender analysis of Bank's Development Policy Financing.
IFI governance
Analysis
The Bretton Woods Institutions and the second crisis of multilateralism
At 75, the World Bank and IMF face a crisis of multilateralism in no small part of their own making as failed economic policies have resulted in skepticism of the international order they helped to create.
Environment
Analysis
Low-carbon infrastructure, sustainable finance, and people-focused development
This briefing emphasises the interdependence between the SDGs and the Paris Climate Agreement, in terms of ensuring that all new infrastructure is climate resilient and aligned with the low- or zero-carbon pathways required to avert catastrophic climate change – which would render achieving the SDGs impossible.
Land
Analysis
The highest bidder takes it all: The World Bank's new scheme to privatise land in the Global South
World Bank Enabling the Business of Agriculture rankings prescribe land privatisation at the expense of family farmers, pastoralists, and Indigenous Peoples.
Other news
IFI governance
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).
Accountability
Analysis
Bank and Fund take on terror
The World Bank and International Monetary Fund appear to have carved out roles for themselves in the “international war against terrorism” through their institutional framework (November 2001).
Issue Overview
Repairing harm caused: What could a reparations approach mean for the IMF and World Bank?
Beginning with a reflection on the implication of decades of neocolonial policies across the world, it is time for the IMF and World Bank to understand their own legacy and take responsibility for both historic harm and enduring injustice today. Steps towards acknowledging, dismantling and in some situations, reshaping the structures of our world are urgently needed and this must include both the IMF and World Bank decolonising their approach.
Repairing harm caused: What could a reparations approach mean for the IMF and World Bank?
Beginning with a reflection on the implication of decades of neocolonial policies across the world, it is time for the IMF and World Bank to understand their own legacy and take responsibility for both historic harm and enduring injustice today. Steps towards acknowledging, dismantling and in some situations, reshaping the structures of our world are urgently needed and this must include both the IMF and World Bank decolonising their approach.
Featured briefings
12 October 2020
World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings 2020
6 October 2020
The Bretton Woods Observer: Autumn 2020
6 October 2020
Repairing harm caused: What could a reparations approach mean for the IMF and World Bank?
It is time for the IMF and World Bank to understand their own responsibility and decolonise their approach.