NGOs have called on governments to pivot away from funding the Bank-housed Climate Investment Funds (CIFs). Concerns have also been raised about private sector delivery of climate finance and that the Bank's efforts to push carbon markets are undermining genuine reforms in the forest sector.
Aid
Accountability
News
Access for the poor?
As the G20 and the World Bank continue their push for increased investment in large-scale public-private led infrastructure projects, further scrutiny of the Bank's track record puts its strategy in question.
Finance
News
IFC "needs to try harder" on development
NGOs continue to find that the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank's private sector arm, is off track in reducing poverty and promoting development, with concerns that the IFC development goals to be implemented in July will not help the poorest.
Finance
News
World Bank launches procurement review
The World Bank is undertaking a review of its procurement policy and procedures between 2012 and 2014, which could have significant consequences for developing countries.
Finance
Background
How can the IMF enhance its focus on growth and poverty reduction in LICS?
A civil society meeting held at the World Bank and the IMF hold their 2012 spring meetings in Washington DC on Friday 20th April.
Accountability
Background
Supporting Social Accountability for Better Results
Minutes of World Bank Social accountability plenary, Washington DC, 19 April 2012
Accountability
Analysis
'Leveraging' private sector finance
The notion that public investments should be used to 'leverage' additional investments from private actors is increasingly used in a variety of development finance forums, including aid, development finance, agriculture and, in particular, climate finance. The World Bank has become one of the leading proponents of this concept, though nowhere has it spelled out clearly what it means by 'leverage' or how it should be measured.
Accountability
News
IEG finds World Bank not well adapted to crisis lending
The final report of the World Bank's Independent Evaluation Group's (IEG, the Bank's arms-length evaluation unit) assessment of the Bank's response to the 2008/09 global economic crisis confirms that Bank measures followed pre-crisis patterns and often failed to reach those most affected, leaving the Bank vulnerable to future crises.
Infrastructure
News
False solutions? The IFC, private equity and climate finance
As the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Bank's private-sector arm, announces new investments in its climate-focused private equity fund, critics argue that investing scarce public climate funds in the financial sector is of unproven effectiveness, will miss the world's poorest regions and has questionable developmental impacts.
Land
Background
Notes of meeting between Stewart James, Alternate UK Executive Director to the World Bank, and NGOs
Civil society organisations met UK Executive Director to the World Bank and staff from the Department for International Development to discuss agriculture, land grabs, food security, the safeguards review process, the selection of the next World Bank president, the doing business indicators, and the debt sustainability framework.
