Land

News

Kyrgyzstan land moratorium lifted

The five-year moratorium on the sale and purchase of land in Kyrgyzstan will be lifted.

Finance

News

Loans for El Salvador emergency

The World Bank was accused of “behaving like vultures, like loan sharks” by US NGO 50 Years is Enough Campaign after it offered to help finance emergency relief efforts in El Salvador in the wake of January’s earthquake.

Conditionality

News

G24 report on IFI governance agendas

The Group of 24 Southern countries published a research paper on “Governance-related conditionalities of the International Financial Institutions”.

Infrastructure

News

Kenya faces new aid embargo

In January the IMF and World Bank threatened to cut off Kenya from more than $450 million in aid as a result of a parliamentary bill on interest rate controls.

Accountability

News

World Bank relations with parliamentarians enter new phase

World Bank interactions with parliamentarians have been increasing in recent years.

Conditionality

News

Lack of impact assessments constrains policy choices

Due to a lack of information on impacts associated with adjustment reforms, there is still no discussion of realistic policy choices and trade-offs in Poverty Reduction Strategies, according to an Oxfam International letter sent to the heads of the Bank and Fund in December.

Conditionality

News

Adjustment lending is “bad news” for poor: Bank study

An internal Bank report has concluded that the poor are better off without structural adjustment.

Finance

News

Dakar 2000: from resistance to alternatives

In December a meeting of campaigners in Dakar, Senegal assessed Africa’s debt crisis and the human effects of structural adjustment.

Conditionality

News

Language a barrier in Cambodia PRSP

Insufficient time and a failure to write documents in the national language limited the opportunity for NGO involvement in Cambodia’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) process, according to the NGO Forum on Cambodia, which includes local and international NGOs.

WB/IMF roles

Analysis

Structural Adjustment for the IMF

Examines representation and power issues relating to the IMF’s Board, staff and management. Identifies and discusses reform proposals.

News

New IMF development dictionary

The IMF has a handy new multilingual dictionary on its website.

Accountability

News

Disllusionment with democracy

The IMF and WB are partly to blame for the growing disillusionment with democracy in Latin America, according to analysis in Political Democracy and Unfulfilled Aspirations by Fernando Carvalho, Institute of Economics, University of Rio de Janeiro.