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.
Briefings
Finance
Analysis
World Bank Group Evolution: Technical fixes or urgently needed reform?
World Bank Evolution Roadmap’s proposed superficial technical patches favouring the ‘logic’ of the market will likely fail to deliver the structural changes needed to support borrowing countries amidst global crises.
Finance
Analysis
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.
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.
Finance
Analysis
Learning lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic: The World Bank’s macroeconomic policies and women’s rights
This briefing argues that the Bank’s current framework for analysing the impacts of its macroeconomic policy advice on gender equality are insufficient.
Finance
Analysis
The IMF's Comprehensive Surveillance Review: A bungled attempt at meeting the moment
Review maintains inadequate and inconsistent approach to economic and gender inequality, as well as climate change.
Featured briefings
12 December 2024
The Bretton Woods Observer: Winter 2024
12 December 2024
Missing in action: accountability is noticeably absent from the World Bank Group’s new Corporate Scorecard
The Corporate Scorecard’s accountability gap is symptomatic of a broader failure on the part of the WBG to fully internalise, integrate and learn from the work of its accountability mechanisms.
16 October 2024