The Spring 2024 G24 communiqué puts pressure on the BWIs to use their influence where it’s needed, including calls to suspend and review surcharges, offer the biggest ever IDA replenishment, suppot the UN Tax Convention, and avoid protectionist policies.
Urgent BWIs reforms remain hostage to lack of political will in Global North as the G20 failed to deliver on important issues within a fragmented geopolitical situation.
Despite the Development Committee advocating for increased international cooperation, persistent geopolitical fragmentation constrains the much-needed reforms essential for addressing 21st-century challenges.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
