Analysis

Finance

Analysis

Africa and the making of adjustment

Development economist and professor of African studies Howard Stein examines the evolution of policy in the Bank, focusing on how economists became hegemonic. In this essay he details the origin of structural adjustment, tracing its roots back to a set of neoliberal economists who gained influence at the Bank in the late 1970s.

29 September 2008 | At Issue

Accountability

Analysis

The IMF's regressive secret

While tax policy and reform is an election battleground in developed countries, the IMF has increasingly turned it into a secret technocratic exercise in developing countries. This briefing examines the IMF's involvement in providing advice on tax policy, particularly its recommendations for the imposition of value added taxes (VATs).

17 June 2008 | At Issue

Infrastructure

Analysis

Facilitating whose power? WB and IMF policy influence in Nigeria's energy sector

Despite rhetoric to the contrary, the World Bank's energy portfolio still fails to reap the double dividend of renewable energy technologies that would tackle both energy poverty and climate change. Nigerian economic policies shaped by World Bank and IMF recommendations, policy agreements and conditionality have so far lead to a dysfunctional electricity privatisation process, a heavy and as yet unfulfilled reliance on reform of the gas sector, and the failure to make any widespread practical pr

2 April 2008 | At Issue

Accountability

Analysis

The IFIs in 2007: year in review

2007 will certainly go down in the annals of the IFIs as an annus horribilis. But a bad year for the IFIs has meant a relatively good year for developing country policy space.

4 February 2008 | Review

Environment

Analysis

Is the Bank's carbon markets approach an effective way to address climate change?

The World Bank's involvement in the carbon market is under hot debate: Janet Redman from the Institute for Policy Studies opposes its approach while Jon Sohn, from Climate Change Capital argues that there is a role for the Bank to play.

4 February 2008 | At Issue

Private Sector

Analysis

The International Finance Corporation: Behind the rhetoric

There is evidence that the IFC's financing of small and medium enterprises, almost all of which occurs via financial intermediaries, is under-supervised, and that direct lending is still focused on large companies in emerging market economies with questionable value-added.

4 December 2007 | At Issue

IFI governance

Analysis

Double majority decision making at the IMF

Many have championed the use of double majorities at the IMF board in order to increase the ability of developing countries to influence decision making. The acceptance of this idea by incoming IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn is welcome, but if he chooses to use a chair-based, rather than member-state-based, second majority it will not change the power dynamics at the board.

30 October 2007 | At Issue

Accountability

Analysis

Transparency at the IMF

A guide for civil society on getting access to information from the IMF

19 October 2007 | Briefings

IFI governance

Analysis

Reform of World Bank governance structures

This analytical note discusses potential governance reforms in the World Bank's governance structures, with an understanding that some reforms become more or less imperative depending on the direction of the discussions around the long-term strategic direction of the Bank.

12 October 2007 | Briefings

Finance

Analysis

Programme conditions, project safeguards: Quo vadis World Bank?

This briefing clarifies the landscape of programme conditions and project safeguards and what it implies for a move towards responsible lending standards.

8 October 2007 | At Issue

Land

Analysis

WDR 2008 preview: a Bank draft for agricultural development?

The World Bank recently released a near-final version of its 2008 World Development Report on 'agriculture for development', ahead of the official release on 19 October.

26 August 2007 | Review

Accountability

Analysis

Consolidating ideology in law?

The World Bank has vastly increased the resources it commits to good governance, with a large portion of that going to a complex and under-researched area: legal and judicial reform. Researcher Victoria Harris explores how the Bank uses such reforms to cement in place its preferred market-based development paradigm.

25 July 2007 | At Issue