New BWP briefing offers critical gender analysis of World Bank lending instrument to borrowing countries.
Briefings
Finance
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.
Finance
Analysis
Debt and gender equality: How debt-servicing conditions harm women in Africa
As debt crises across the African continent continue to soar, concerns are raised about the gendered impact of debt-servicing conditions imposed by international financial institutions.
Gender
Analysis
Gender-Just Macroeconomics II
BWP's Gender and Macroeconomics project launches a booklet on Gender-Just Macroeconomics; the World Bank’s privatisation push
Gender
Analysis
The IMF and Gender Equality: Operationalising Change
Latest IMF guidance on gender issues raises more questions than answers as it opens the door to impact assessments and alternative macro policies.
Environment
Analysis
World Bank's investment in Seven Energy in Nigeria once again calls Bank's due diligence into question
World Bank's due diligence processes highly suspect as it invests a quarter of a billion dollars in Nigerian Seven Energy, where several individuals associated with the company’s flagship contract are now either on the run or charged with money laundering.
Gender
Analysis
The World Bank's role in crafting a neoliberal hegemony with a feminist face
The World Bank’s recent gender equality approach constitutes an attempt at establishing a consensus over the regulation of the economy.
Finance
Analysis
The World Bank and the globalisation of housing finance
In prioritising capital market expansion, the needs of the lowest income groups are not being effectively addressed through World Bank interventions.
Conditionality
Analysis
Pro-poor or anti-poor? The World Bank and IMF’s approach to social protection
Stephen Kidd critiques Bretton Woods Institutions' approach to targeted social protection systems, arguing the poor lose out the most.
Conditionality
Analysis
World Bank report on fiscal adjustment in Brazil: questionable analysis; unfair policies
The World Bank’s report on public spending in Brazil raises serious questions about the methodology used and relevance of the report’s focus on fiscal consolidation in light of its own admission that the deterioration of Brazil’s fiscal situation is due principally to the recession.
Featured briefings
15 August 2019
The World Bank and gender equality: Development Policy Financing
New BWP briefing offers critical gender analysis of World Bank lending instrument to borrowing countries.
30 July 2019
The Bretton Woods Observer: Summer 2019
30 July 2019
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.