Analysis

IFI governance

Analysis

V20 communiqué analysis Annual Meetings 2024: climate vulnerable countries once again demand key changes to IMF’s approach, as world risks breaching climate tipping points

V20 members offered a searing indictment of rich countries’ failure to act on BWIs governance, debt relief, climate finance and SDRs.

29 October 2024
World Bank President Ajay Banga, speaks at an event titled Transforming Challenge into Action: Expanding Health Coverage for All, at the WBG & IMF Spring Meetings, 18 April 2024, Washington DC. Credit: Grant Ellis / World Bank

IFI governance

Analysis

Annual Meetings 2024 Preamble: BWIs’ management and key shareholders stand in the way of transformative governance reforms despite ‘evolution’ rhetoric

Unconvincing World Bank Evolution Roadmap reforms and IMF’s struggle to mainstream climate and gender symptomatic of wider malaise.

17 October 2024
World Bank cartoon lost in the middle of a forest

IFI governance

Analysis

New World Bank Corporate Scorecard: overlooking client priorities and ignoring development impact

The World Bank’s new Corporate Scorecard misses the forest for the trees as it lacks an indicator to measure the Bank’s contribution to economic transformation, a cornerstone of its development mandate.

16 October 2024

Conditionality

Analysis

Kenya's growing youth movement for fiscal justice rejects IMF-mandated austerity

Youth-led led protests lead to withdrawal of controversial finance bill by President William Ruto.

16 October 2024 | Guest analysis
President of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, during the opening of the Joint Session of the G20 Sherpa and Finance Trails, at the Itamaraty Palace. Brasília - DF.

Finance

Analysis

The lost call for international financial architecture reform in the G20

At the 80th anniversary of the World Bank and IMF, global civil society must maintain pressure on the Brazilian and South African G20 presidencies to ensure the forth Financing for Development Conference in 2025 results in urgently required international financial architecture reform.

16 October 2024 | At Issue

Finance

Analysis

Sustainable development requires sustainable finance: why local currency financing is part of the solution

Multilateral development banks can reduce their dependence on hard currency lending and make local currency financing a central element of their developmental mandate.

16 October 2024 | At Issue

Gender

Analysis

World Bank fails to incorporate key elements of new Gender Strategy in IDA21 policy package and Corporate Scorecard

Despite Bank’s new Gender Strategy’s positive offerings on human rights and the value of public services to women and girls, IDA21 replenishment and new Corporate Scorecard see women only as economic opportunity for the private finance push.

16 October 2024
Lethaba Power Station outside Sasolburg in the Free State, 2007. Credit: John Hogg / World Bank

Environment

Analysis

Year one of World Bank Paris Agreement alignment in the energy sector: ‘green conditionality’ dwarfs green investments

New BWP research finds the Word Bank's approach to Paris alignment is being used to a significant extent to impose ‘green conditionalities' on borrowing countries, especially in the Global South.

1 October 2024 | Briefings
cover illustration of the Observer Summer 2024

Finance

Analysis

IMF board’s reluctance leaves Special Drawing Rights as an underused tool in Fund's toolbox

IMF board's lukewarm endorsement of SDR rechanneling through MDBs stands in stark contrast to continued calls from Global South governments for additional SDR allocations, amid growing debt crisis.

3 July 2024
Civil society representatives participate in townhall during the World Bank Annual Meetings in Marrakech, October 2023. Credit: World Bank / Flickr

Accountability

Analysis

Is the World Bank rolling back commitments to citizen engagement, again?

Understanding the Bank’s chequered history with public, community and civil society participation is key for understanding what is at stake and what to do next.

3 July 2024 | At Issue
Civil society member holding a sign: Stop IMF Surcharges

Finance

Analysis

No false solutions: IMF surcharges must go

The IMF’s surcharges review presents a golden opportunity to eliminate these harmful and counterproductive fees.

3 July 2024 | Guest analysis

Gender

Analysis

IMF’s Interim Guidance Note on Mainstreaming Gender fails to address negative gendered impacts of IMF austerity

Gender Guidance note offers non-mandatory advice to staff on mainstreaming gender but integration of existing in-depth critiques from feminists and civil society needed to tackle gender inequality is missing.

3 July 2024