The causes of and remedies for the food crisis are hotly contested; how this rupture in the status quo is resolved will have decisive implications for the roles of the IFIs as well as more broadly for global food security and ecological sustainability.
Agriculture
Land
News
Sri Lankan small farmers slam World Bank
Local farmers and agriculture activists in Sri Lanka have slammed World Bank intervention in the agricultural sector, saying it has caused the eradication of small-scale cultivation and resulted in high food prices, in particular rice and wheat.
Land
News
Slaughtering the Amazon
A new report finds the World Bank culpable for the cattle industry's encroachment on the Amazon.
Land
News
The Bank, Brazil and biofuels
The World Bank has become a major financial and political supporter of Brazil's campaign for sugar-cane based ethanol and a free market for bio-fuels.
Land
News
Failing small farmers: The World Bank and agriculture
Stinging from a critique from its own evaluation unit on its work on agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa, the World Bank released its flagship annual report on agriculture in October to heavy criticism from civil society.
Land
Analysis
WDR 2008 preview: a Bank draft for agricultural development?
The World Bank recently released a near-final version of its 2008 World Development Report on 'agriculture for development', ahead of the official release on 19 October.
Land
News
Bank's agriculture, for development?
While a draft of the Bank's World Development Report on agriculture has undergone two civil society consultations, the prospective message and details of the final report remain vague.
Infrastructure
News
World Bank's carbon trading plans fail Africa
While the World Bank promotes the burgeoning carbon trading market as a "tool to help Africa's poor", an investigation has unearthed gross incompetence with the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) in which the Bank is heavily involved. A report by Oxfam points out serious inadequacies with the Bank's adaptation figures.
Land
Analysis
Concerns e-voiced: WDR on 'agriculture for development' in consultation process
The World Bank released a first draft of its latest World Development Report on 'agriculture for development' on 9 April.
Land
News
Human rights trump internal procedures
As the UN human rights council holds its fourth session, the last few months have witnessed dynamic processes on human rights and development finance that bolster arguments to hold international financial institutions accountable under international law.
Featured briefings
16 October 2024
The Bretton Woods Observer: Autumn 2024
16 October 2024
The lost call for international financial architecture reform in the G20
At the 80th anniversary of the World Bank and IMF, global civil society must maintain pressure on the Brazilian and South African G20 presidencies to ensure the forth Financing for Development Conference in 2025 results in urgently required international financial architecture reform.
16 October 2024
Sustainable development requires sustainable finance: why local currency financing is part of the solution
Multilateral development banks can reduce their dependence on hard currency lending and make local currency financing a central element of their developmental mandate.