Environmental Advocacy Project
Monitoring the Bretton Woods Institutions’ efforts to mainstream climate change into their mandates
About this programme
The Environmental Advocacy Project aims to challenge how the policies of the World Bank and IMF – the Bretton Woods Institutions (BWIs) – shape borrowers countries’ ability to respond to the climate crisis and realise their development rights within planetary boundaries.
The Project advocates for an energy transition rooted in national sovereignty, energy democracy, public ownership of energy systems and climate justice, challenging the BWIs’ longstanding neoliberal, private sector-led paradigms.
Through sustained advocacy, monitoring, and support for civil society partners, the Project works to:
Synthesise new evidence on the World Bank’s approach to energy sector decarbonisation, evaluating the impacts of its efforts to crowd in private finance.
Advocate for public transparency in how the World Bank accounts for its climate finance.
Call on the IMF to expand its policy toolkit to better respond to the climate crisis, including by realising the potential of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs).
Strengthen civil society engagement in World Bank and IMF climate and energy policy processes.
Featured content
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.
Year one of World Bank Paris Agreement alignment in the energy sector: ‘green conditionality’ dwarfs green investments
New BWP research finds the Word Bank’s approach to Paris alignment is being used to a significant extent to impose ‘green conditionalities’ on borrowing countries, especially in the Global South.
Get in touch
To find out more information about our work on environment, please contact our Environment Project team, Jon Sward and Laure-Alizée Le Lannou.
