It is time for the IMF and World Bank to understand their own responsibility and decolonise their approach.
Analysis
Social services
Analysis
World Bank funded $17.3 million Uganda reproductive health voucher PPP fails to reach the poorest women
World Bank backs private sector voucher project in Uganda as poorest women lose out.
Finance
Analysis
Over optimistic IMF forecasts risk dire consequences for Covid-19 response
As G20 gears up to take critical decisions on international financial response to Covid-19, the consequences of overly rosy IMF forecasts are potentially more costly than ever.
Finance
Analysis
World Bank’s rating obsession will negate debt justice
The international financial system’s reliance upon credit ratings – usually based on dubious premises – needs urgent rethinking.
Finance
Analysis
The IMF and World Bank-led Covid-19 recovery: ‘Building back better’ or locking in broken policies?
Early evidence suggests IMF programmes are maintaining long-term fiscal consolidation targets, while World Bank further continues Maximizing Finance for Development narrative amidst Covid-19 crisis.
Infrastructure
Analysis
World Bank must ensure new Africa energy strategy is inclusive and pro-poor
The Bank’s new Africa energy strategy offers it an important chance to mainstream achieving SDG7 into its energy lending on the continent.
Conditionality
Analysis
The IMF’s role in the devastating impacts of Covid-19 – the case of Ecuador
IMF-backed austerity measures starved health sector prior to pandemic, yet Fund continues to prescribe devastating long-term fiscal consolidation.
Rights
Analysis
Fears of lawsuits at World Bank’s tribunal constrain efforts to fight pandemic
Covid-19 pandemic highlights the urgent need for ICSID and wider ISDS reforms as cases threaten to undermine state efforts to protect public health.
IFI governance
Analysis
Fears of shrinking civil society space as World Bank Staff Association calls for axing of Spring Meetings
World Bank Staff Association's call for permanent cancellation of Spring Meetings and its CSPF raises long-standing concerns about the need for improved civil society engagement by the Bank and Fund.
IFI governance
Analysis
Spring Meetings 2020 wrap-up: Will this change everything? Apparently not…
Analysis of this year's World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings: With international response to Covid-19 mired in geopolitical manoeuverings and resistance to systemic change, calls for alternatives grow.
IFI governance
Analysis
Development Committee communiqué analysis - Spring Meetings 2020
Analysis of the Development Committee communiqué published on 17 April.
IFI governance
Analysis
G20 communiqué analysis - Spring Meetings 2020
Analysis of the G20 communiqué published on 15 April.
Featured briefings
6 April 2023
World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings 2023
5 April 2023
The IMF at the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: The need for governance reform
As the world celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is time the IMF’s shareholders use the opportunities provided by the anniversary and growing calls for reforms to the international financial architecture to redesign the IMF’s governance structures and programmes to ensure they are consistent with the commitments outlined in 1948 and with international human rights law.
5 April 2023
The global financial architecture and the international debt crisis: An urgent call for reform
Influence of unreformed international financial institutions and creditor interests in debt solutions in low- and middle-income countries plagued by delay and ineffective when undertaken.