Brazilian and international NGOs charge that IFC-funded soy and cattle projects in the Amazon further deforestation, ignore social and environmental risks and contradict World Bank policy.
Agriculture
Land
News
IFC-funded goldmine shut down by local protest
Following two weeks of protests and road blocks that shut down the city of Cajamarca…
Rights
News
Concerns about Brazil soya project
Brazilian NGOs challenge proposed World Bank Group support for soya farming in the Amazon region.
Rights
News
World Bank pushes Malawi agriculture privatisation
World Bank manoeuvres to ensure parliamentary approval of a controversial agriculture privatisation policy demonstrates the continued influence of the Bank and the problems with Poverty and Social Impact Analysis.
Rights
News
Pakistani hunger strikers seek reparations for damaging project
In March Pakistani activists observed a hunger strike in front of the World Bank offices in Islamabad. The strikers pointed out that Bank-backed projects have caused serious damage to their livelihoods and the coastal ecology and called for the loan to be suspended.
Land
News
Bank pushed policies likely to cause famine - book
A former Bank consultant has charged the Bank with pushing policies which would have led to the starvation of a third of a million people in Sierra Leone.
Rights
News
Bank timid steps on land reform
The World Bank’s Land Policy department is preparing a Policy Research Report on land reform, which NGOs criticise for too heavily favouring a market-assisted approach.
Land
News
Turkey to test Fund independence
A power struggle is emerging over Turkey’s compliance with a host of proposed economic reforms included in a $16 billion IMF loan package.
Land
News
Process for agriculture assessment clarified
At a meeting in Dublin in early November the World Bank discussed the process for its new global assessment of agricultural science and technology.
Land
News
IFI role in Southern Africa famine condemned
A new study from Oxfam questions why, after years of World Bank and IMF-designed agricultural sector reforms, Malawi, Zambia, and Mozambique face chronic food insecurity.
Featured briefings
1 October 2024
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.
3 July 2024
The Bretton Woods Observer: Summer 2024
3 July 2024
Is the World Bank rolling back commitments to citizen engagement, again?
Understanding the Bank’s chequered history with public, community and civil society participation is key for understanding what is at stake and what to do next.