Debate remains over the formulation and content of PRSPs. Many analysts suggest that they continue the trajectory of structural adjustment policies.
Conditionality impacts
Conditionality
Commentary
Life under the IMF’s magnifying glass:
The Fund takes to micro-management in Zambia to ensure compliance with belt tightening measures, threatening civil unrest.
IFI governance
News
Legislators courted but oversight insufficient
The Parliamentary Network on the World Bank (PNoWB) will hold its annual conference February 15-16 in Paris. Oversight of relations between governments, the IMF and the Bank by legislators is still insufficient in the North and in the South.
Rights
News
World Bank Loans to Andhra Pradesh: Financing bloodshed and impunity?
Human rights activists in Andhra Pradesh have strongly objected to World Bank plans for a new economic reform loan to the state government.
Trade
News
High-level conference on "trade, growth and poverty"
Organised by the UK Department for International Development, the World Bank, IMF and UNDP, a two-day conference held in London 8-9 December gathered officials, agency representatives and academics to discuss the links between trade, growth and poverty. The objective of the conference was to provide direction on how to integrate trade into national development strategies.
Knowledge
Analysis
Leading a horse to water: Is there a role for the IMF in poverty reduction?
Many observers were sceptical when a few years ago the IMF embarked on a mission to respond to the "cries of the poor", in the words of its then head Michel Camdessus
Conditionality
News
Debt and destruction in Senegal
A new report by Demba Moussa Demb
Conditionality
News
Six die in Dominican IMF protests
Six people were killed and over 20 wounded in the Dominican Republic on 11 November during a strike called to protest austerity measures called for by the IMF.
Conditionality
News
Adjustment policy delayed
The World Bank has delayed finalisation of its new structural adjustment policy. A subcommittee of…
Conditionality
News
Brazil renews "unnecessary" IMF agreement despite opposition
Brazil and the IMF announced they would renew a financial arrangement at the end of the year, sparking new doubts about the methods and motives of Lula's government. The news came shortly after Rede Brasil, a network of Brazilian NGOs and social movements, urged the government not to sign.
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.