At a time when transformative changes on governance and development financing are required, the World Bank and IMF have instead opted for a slimmed down Spring Meetings schedule.
Analysis
IFI governance
Analysis
Undemocratic gentleman's agreement will further challenge next IMF managing director
EU countries’ backing of Kristalina Georgieva for a second term as IMF Managing Director will likely set in motion the next steps towards her reappointment, representing another lost opportunity to reform IMF governance.
IFI governance
Analysis
IDA21: Moving beyond a focus on ‘historic’ replenishment
Calls for a ‘historic’ IDA21 replenishment risk diverting attention from the policy framework necessary for IDA to support countries to break their dependence on development finance and undertake the ecologically sustainable and just economic transformation long sought by their populations.
Social services
Analysis
Beyond the World Bank: The fight for universal social protection in the Global South
The World Bank Group promotes a model of social protection via poverty-targeted programmes that are error-strewn and can cause social unease, and set back progress towards universal social protection.
Finance
Analysis
Opportunity lost: World Bank's Roadmap fails to chart path to better development outcomes
Civil society renews calls for an independent external evaluation of Bank policies ahead of Spring Meetings’ focus on the operationalisation of the Roadmap and a ‘historic’ IDA21 replenishment.
Environment
Analysis
Gambling with the planet’s future? World Bank Development Policy Finance, ‘green’ conditionality, and the push for a private-led energy transition
BWP's review of energy sector conditionality in World Bank Development Policy Financing from fiscal years 2018 to 2023 reveals the Bank has followed a pattern of promoting neoliberal reforms in many countries' energy sectors, with climate action increasingly being viewed as the rationale for these changes.
Private Sector
Analysis
Financialisation, human rights and the Bretton Woods Institutions: An introduction for civil society organisations
New BWP's report examines the role of the BWIs in driving financialisation in the Global South and perpetuating neocolonial global imbalances of wealth and power, paying particular attention to its gendered consequences.
Accountability
Analysis
A proposal for Ajay: No evolution without remedy
While World Bank President declares the benefits of a “bigger and better” Bank, the scandal of alleged child sexual abuse and cover up relating to IFC investments in Bridge Academies demonstrates the urgent need for the Bank to establish a robust remedy framework.
Environment
Analysis
Coal not yet confined to the “old days” by World Bank Group
Despite the World Bank’s commitment to move away from funding coal, a series of loopholes in its financial intermediary lending remain that will continue to allow finance to support coal power projects.
Finance
Analysis
Decolonising the global economic architecture: The prerequisite for a just transition
Global South faces severe structural deficiencies that weaken its economic sovereignty and put it at the mercy of a neo-colonial global financial architecture.
Conditionality
Analysis
World Bank and IMF promoting private finance and fiscal consolidation despite mounting evidence of harmful impacts
Civil society research documents clear harms from privatisation and fiscal consolidation on public services and human rights, as Bank and Fund push for their deepening.
Finance
Analysis
UN Secretary General's New Agenda for Peace calls for urgent financial architecture and policy reform
UN Secretary General’s New Agenda for Peace report identifies growing threats to global peace and stability, and proposes urgent reforms to the unjust economic system. World Bank and IMF resist policy and governance reform.
Featured briefings
1 October 2024
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.
3 July 2024
The Bretton Woods Observer: Summer 2024
3 July 2024
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.