Bank may not respond to asks until June, at the earliest, raising questions about timeline for fund’s operationalisation.
Climate finance
Environment
News
IFC trade finance continues to invest in fossil fuels, with no board oversight
New research by Urgewald finds that the World Bank Group invested an estimated $3.7 billion in oil and gas developments in 2022 via trade financing.
Environment
Analysis
Gambling with the planet’s future? World Bank Development Policy Finance, ‘green’ conditionality, and the push for a private-led energy transition
BWP's review of energy sector conditionality in World Bank Development Policy Financing from fiscal years 2018 to 2023 reveals the Bank has followed a pattern of promoting neoliberal reforms in many countries' energy sectors, with climate action increasingly being viewed as the rationale for these changes.
Environment
Analysis
Coal not yet confined to the “old days” by World Bank Group
Despite the World Bank’s commitment to move away from funding coal, a series of loopholes in its financial intermediary lending remain that will continue to allow finance to support coal power projects.
Environment
News
Selection of World Bank to host new Loss and Damage Fund draws ire of developing countries and civil society advocates
Developing countries insist on lengthy list of conditions as Bank is named host of new Loss and Damage Fund on interim basis.
Environment
News
Morocco and IMF Resilience and Sustainability Trust: Balancing debt, privatisation and neocolonial dynamics
Morocco's $1.32 billion Resilience and Sustainability Trust loan comes with 'green conditions' which may facilitate neocolonial resource-grabbing and a European-led rush for ‘green’ hydrogen.
Environment
Background
What is the IMF Resilience and Sustainability Trust?
This Inside the Institutions looks at IMF’s Resilience and Sustainability Trust (RST) reflecting on concerns about its eligibility criteria, quota limit, and 'green conditions'.
Environment
News
World Bank’s reliance on private capital to finance green transition in low- and middle-income countries risks falling flat
Despite lofty rhetoric, Bank’s attempts to use scarce concessional finance to build investable project pipelines to secure power sector decarbonisation faces significant hurdles.
Environment
News
MIGA’s new insurance for voluntary carbon offsets risks propping up junk assets, say campaigners
World Bank’s political insurance arm to provide risk cover to existing offsets if they are affected by governments efforts to better regulate problem-plagued offset schemes.
Finance
Analysis
World Bank Group Evolution: Technical fixes or urgently needed reform?
World Bank Evolution Roadmap’s proposed superficial technical patches favouring the ‘logic’ of the market will likely fail to deliver the structural changes needed to support borrowing countries amidst global crises.
Featured briefings
9 June 2025
New data reveal World Bank DPF ‘climate finance’ carries strong private sector bias, undermining a just transition
New BWP briefing finds the World Bank counted 70 per cent of energy-sector reforms in Development Policy Financing as having 'climate co-benefits' between 2018-2023 - but most of these promoted a private-led energy transition.
15 April 2025
The Bretton Woods Observer: Spring 2025
2 April 2025