The IMF has taken few steps to openly evaluate its operations. To try to remedy this situation, and in response to non-governmental organisations’ calls for a fully independent review mechanism, the IMF executive board decided to establish an ad hoc external review mechanism on a trial basis (1998).
Analysis
Social services
Analysis
Social principles: an update
When the social principles were proposed by Gordon Brown at the 1998 AGM of the Bank and IMF it was envisaged that they would apply to all countries and would be monitored as the other codes on Fiscal Transparency, Monetary Policy and Corporate Governance will be. The Development Committee charged the World Bank with the task of drawing up the principles (1999).
Knowledge
Analysis
The power of World Bank knowledge
For the enormous power and global reach the World Bank has today, relatively little formal debate exists on one critical aspect of its practices - the production of knowledge.
Rights
Analysis
The power of World Bank knowledge
By Michael Goldman * For the enormous power and global reach the World Bank has…
Environment
Analysis
World Bank and IMF: Dilemmas and Opportunities
Are the World Bank and IMF now taking environmental and social issues seriously?
Environment
Analysis
Questioning the World Bank/IMF Growth Model
Questioning the Growth Model was a meeting organised jointly by the Bretton Woods Project and…
Environment
Analysis
Terschelling discussion groups
Days two and three of the Terschelling meeting were conducted as small breakout groups, interspersed by short plenary discussions.
Environment
Analysis
Roleplay Reflections
At noon on the second day of the Terschelling meeting, five of us were lured away from the peak of the discussions to “role-play” a World Bank public consultation.
Conditionality
Analysis
The “Perestroika Of Aid”? New Perspectives On Conditionality
This report considers the factors which have led to a proliferation of conditionality and the growing acceptance that it is not an effective tool for persuading governments to make reforms. It proposes that an alternative is to encourage “ownership” and to base lending agreements on “poverty focused” programmes developed at the national level (1999).
Finance
Analysis
Assessing Assessing Aid
A discussion and critique of the main points in a prominent World Bank report on aid policy and conditionality - “Assessing Aid, What Works, What Doesn’t and Why”. The Bank’s report is very frank about the many failures of aid financing, but its proposals of targeting finance to good performing countries are controversial (1999).
Featured briefings
12 December 2024
The Bretton Woods Observer: Winter 2024
12 December 2024
Missing in action: accountability is noticeably absent from the World Bank Group’s new Corporate Scorecard
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.
16 October 2024