Articles & resources
Critical voices on the World Bank and the IMF
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V20 communiqué analysis Annual Meetings 2025
Climate-vulnerable countries rebuke austerity-based response to debt crisis, as their climate needs remain largely unfinanced.
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Annual Meetings 2025 Preamble: Bank and Fund struggle to find response to global backlash to neoliberalism, as ‘new Bretton Woods’ reforms sputter
The mounting contradictions between rhetoric and practice at the IMF and World Bank grow as geopolitical tensions and poor economic prospects strain social and political stability.
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International Court of Justice ruling delivers ‘earthquake’ on states’ obligations to address climate crisis
Landmark opinion confirms states have a binding legal duty to prevent climate harm, which has implications for their ‘voice and vote’ at IFIs.
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IDA21 policy package disappoints as prospects for IDA countries continue to darken
After difficult negotiations due to American pressure on climate and gender, World Bank governors approve IDA21 document, embedding the Bank’s problematic private sector-led development approach and failing to integrate economic transformation or binding human rights obligations.
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Ghana’s gas debt provides cautionary tale as World Bank reconsiders support for upstream gas projects
After following World Bank energy reform model, government faced with crippling debts and high energy costs.
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The World Bank shareholding review – reform or ritual?
Focusing on the 2025 Shareholding Review, this Inside the Institutions explores power asymmetries within the World Bank and growing calls for equitable, transparent and accountable governance reform.
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New data reveal World Bank DPF ‘climate finance’ carries strong private sector bias, undermining a just transition
While the World Bank counted 70 per cent of energy-sector reforms in Development Policy Finance as having ‘climate co-benefits’ between 2018-2023, most promoted a private-led energy transition.
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Spring Meetings 2025 Wrap-up: Don’t look up! Bank and Fund leadership self-censors on climate change and gender issues, as US tariffs rock global economic outlook
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent indicates US will stay in the Bank and Fund, claiming “America First does not mean America alone,” as tariffs and rising debt vulnerabilities prompt gloomy forecast.
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Development Committee chair’s statement analysis Spring Meetings 2025: holding out on climate, but not without private finance
The Development Committee met on 24 April, with the chair issuing a statement, instead of a communiqué, reflecting the views of the majority of the group and providing clarity on priorities and moments of consensus within the chaos.
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Spring Meetings 2025 Preamble: geopolitical turmoil further muddies path of BWI reform and multilateral cooperation
As the World Bank and IMF prepare for the 2025 Spring Meetings, the US executive order reviewing its participation in global institutions has heightened long-standing concerns about the direction of the Bretton Woods system – with civil society turning to FfD4 to reimagine the future of multilateralism.
