A forthcoming report on private equity infrastructure funds by Nicholas Hildyard of NGO The Corner House, More than bricks and mortar, looks at the connections between infrastructure funding and international financial markets, and at the wider political project that infrastructure embodies. In this briefing, Hildyard argues that the transformation of infrastructure into an asset class has environmental and social implications far beyond what can be handled by stronger safeguards on investments.
Analysis
Environment
Analysis
Climate Investment Funds Monitor 5
The Climate Investment Funds (CIFs) are financing instruments designed to pilot low-carbon and climate-resilient development through the multilateral development banks (MDBs). They are comprised of two trust funds - the Clean Technology Fund (CTF) and the Strategic Climate Fund (SCF).
Accountability
Analysis
'Leveraging' private sector finance
The notion that public investments should be used to 'leverage' additional investments from private actors is increasingly used in a variety of development finance forums, including aid, development finance, agriculture and, in particular, climate finance. The World Bank has become one of the leading proponents of this concept, though nowhere has it spelled out clearly what it means by 'leverage' or how it should be measured.
Finance
Analysis
Time for a new consensus
This report explains the drawbacks, especially for development, of policies to deregulate the movement of money across borders, and makes suggestions for a new pragmatic approach to regulation of financial flows to ensure stability and development.
Conditionality
Analysis
IMF policy recommendations
IMF policy recommendations are often criticised for being too restrictive, procyclical and paying little attention to country-specific circumstances. In the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, the Fund showed some policy rethinking, bringing about expectations of change. However, Rathin Roy and Raquel A. Ramos of the UNDP Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth analyse IMF policy recommendations given to developing countries and conclude that headquarters' receptiveness to new approaches has not been trans
Accountability
Analysis
The IFIs in 2011: year in review
The deepening economic crisis in the eurozone continued to dominate headlines in 2011, with the IMF participating in controversial lending attached to austerity policies and conditionality requiring privatisation of public services, layoffs in the public sector and wage and pension cuts for vulnerable and poor people. The policies being pursued in Europe are strikingly similar to the structural adjustment programmes pushed in developing countries in the 1980s and 90s, which provided some of the
IFI governance
Analysis
Memorandum by the Bretton Woods Project for the UK Treasury Committee
It is widely accepted that global imbalances were a major contributing factor to the recent global financial crisis. In written evidence submitted to the UK Treasury Committee, we argue that there are four main underlying causes and three areas of major reform needed.
Social services
Analysis
Gender WDR
The 2012 World Development Report is a watershed moment: it is the first time that the World Bank, the world's largest and most influential development institution, has devoted its flagship publication to gender. Kate Bedford of the University of Kent argues that the report leaves the Bank failing to face up to its role in perpetuating policies that harm women, and is seriously limited in its approach to women's movements, markets, and households.
Finance
Analysis
Breaking the mould
Argentina, Brazil and Costa Rica are among the countries that have recently implemented capital account regulations. This report reviews the evidence available on the impact of their measures, providing evidence of the usefulness of capital account regulations not only in achieving financial stability but also in preventing unwarranted appreciation of the exchange rate and increasing monetary policy space.
Infrastructure
Analysis
No fairy tale
As debates continue at the World Bank about its lending for new coal-fired power plants, residents of the Indian district of Singrauli, the country's coal capital, still live with the lasting social and environmental impacts of decades of coal-related projects and ask why the Bank has never returned to fully address what has been left in the wake of its investments in the region.
Environment
Analysis
Climate Investment Funds Monitor 4
The Climate Investment Funds (CIFs) are financing instruments designed to pilot low-carbon and climate-resilient development through the multilateral development banks (MDBs). They are comprised of two trust funds - the Clean Technology Fund (CTF) and the Strategic Climate Fund (SCF).
Infrastructure
Analysis
Power surge
This paper about energy and women in India highlights examples from visits to NGO projects, social entrepreneurs and social movements in five Indian states over the course of three months, as well as conversations with energy and women rights experts. The paper then highlights lessons drawn from field visits and what they mean for the development community with particular focus on the World Bank.
