When the social principles were proposed by Gordon Brown at the 1998 AGM of the Bank and IMF it was envisaged that they would apply to all countries and would be monitored as the other codes on Fiscal Transparency, Monetary Policy and Corporate Governance will be. The Development Committee charged the World Bank with the task of drawing up the principles (1999).
Briefings
Conditionality
Analysis
The IMF’s Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility: What Role for Development?
Although it has sought to adapt, the Fund still has particular difficulties in dealing effectively with low income countries. The introduction of ESAF was an important attempt at adaptation but its programmes are still too short term, the scale of support is often too small, and the policy conditions laid down are too blinkered.
Conditionality
Analysis
What Role for the Multilateral Institutions, Donors, and NGOs in the New Framework for Poverty Eradi
This paper considers how the relationships and roles of intenational and national non-governmental organisations, donors and the multilateral institutions are likely to change as a result of new initiatives to put poverty reduction and country ownership at the centre of the development process (2000).
WB/IMF roles
Analysis
Policing the Policemen - the case for an independent evaluation mechanism for the IMF
Briefing outlining the case for an independent evaluation unit for the IMF and setting out the outlines the principles on which it should function (1998).
WB/IMF roles
Analysis
Beyond Meltzer
This briefing is a response to the “Meltzer Report” produced by the US congressional Committee led by Allan Meltzer on the roles of the IMF and World Bank. It examines the Committee’s recommendations and outlines why they are inappropriate and how they would actually increase the power of the IMF, whilst turning it into an institution that would serve the needs of private sector investors rather than assisting governments (2000).
WB/IMF roles
Analysis
Partnerships For Development: A New World Bank Approach
The World Bank has produced a discussion paper, Partnership for Development: Proposed Actions for the World Bank, which presents a strategy for building ownership into the development process, developing partnerships between donors to fund government designed programmes and to make more effective use of aid resources (1998).
Private Sector
Analysis
The IFC’s Beyond 2000 Strategy Paper: Missing the Point
Short note outlining concerns about the International Finance Corporation’s attempt to redefine its strategy. The new strategy ducks the key issue of how the IFC can use its leverage to improve companies’ social and environmental peformance. (February 1998)
Private Sector
Analysis
The World Bank and the Private Sector
Explains and examines the World Bank Group’s approach to supporting private investment in developing countries through privatisation, guarantees and lending. Outlines critical perspectives on whether the Bank’s strategy will lead to poverty reduction and sustainable development (March 1997).
Conditionality
Analysis
The ABC of the PRSP
An introduction to the new Bank and Fund Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers.
IFI governance
Analysis
The World Bank And The State: A Recipe For Change?
Bretton Woods Project-commissioned riposte to the World Bank’s World Development Report, The State in a Changing World. (March 1998).
WB/IMF roles
Analysis
Blind Leading The Blind: Capital Account Liberalisation And The Role Of The IMF
In the light of the financial crisis in South East Asia and the traumur this brought to many people’s lives in the region it was anticipated that the executive directors of the international monetary fund would discuss a proposal to extend the IMF’s articles of agreement so that it can pursue capital account liberalisation in member countries.
Knowledge
Analysis
The power of World Bank knowledge
For the enormous power and global reach the World Bank has today, relatively little formal debate exists on one critical aspect of its practices - the production of knowledge.
Featured briefings
27 September 2023
Financialisation and human rights in the Middle East and North Africa
This briefing explains how the IMF and World Bank have driven the financialisation of MENA states, and the pervasive negative effects this has had on the region’s societies and economies.
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.