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.
Conditionality impacts
Conditionality
News
Structural Adjustment: another flawed process?
The World Bank has issued a discussion paper for consultation before revising its operational directive on adjustment lending. On 18 July 2002 London was the first in a series of cities to host a consultation meeting. NGOs have raised concerns about the consultation process and the ability of the World Bank to learn lessons from the past on structural adjustment.
Conditionality
News
The IMF in Latin America: tough cop, social worker or skunk?
Three recent papers which attempt to analyse the IMF’s role in the Argentinean crisis are examined: ex-IMF senior economist Michael Mussa, the Center for Global Development’s Nancy Birdsall and Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
Conditionality
News
Bank “cornering market” in trade capacity building
The Bank’s role in trade capacity building affords enormous influence over the hearts and minds of trade policy makers and the way in which trade is mainstreamed into national development plans. The initial experience of the Integrated Framework programme shows that there is reason for concern.
Knowledge
Analysis
Cornering the Market: The World Bank and trade capacity building
The Bank’s role in trade capacity building affords enormous influence over the hearts and minds of trade policy makers and the way in which trade is mainstreamed into national development plans. The initial experience of the Integrated Framework programme shows that there is reason for concern. (September 2002)
Conditionality
News
Rebranding adjustment: the World Bank and “development policy support lending”
The World Bank has issued a discussion paper for consultation before revising its operational directive on adjustment lending. Concerns over changes to the ceiling on policy-based lending and a shift towards less mandatory directives, as well as the conultation process itself, have been raised by NGOs.
Conditionality
News
IMF fiddles while Argentina burns
A synthesis of the last two months in the ongoing negotiations between the IMF and the Argentine government.
Conditionality
News
Ugandan MP denounces Bank/Fund prescriptions
Ugandan MP Sheila Mishembi Kawamara, at a 5 June meeting of East African legislative members, said that countries such as China, Mauritius, Vietnam and Thailand had refused to take World Bank and IMF prescriptions and their economies were thriving.
Accountability
News
Indonesian MPs: write-off IMF loans
One hundred members of the Indonesian parliament wrote to the heads of the IMF and World Bank, condemning the institutions for implementing “disastrous orthodox macroeconomic policies”.
Conditionality
News
On the road to “Qatar-naskis”
G8 leaders put terrorism, NEPAD and education on the agenda for the June summit in Western Canada. Activists organize a parallel summit in Calgary and a “solidarity village” in Kananaskis. Meanwhile, African NGOs criticize NEPAD as a re-hashing of neo-liberalism.
Featured briefings
6 April 2022
The Bretton Woods Observer: Spring 2022
8 December 2021
The Bretton Woods Observer: Winter 2021
8 November 2021
IMF surveillance and climate change transition risks
New briefing by ActionAid USA and the Bretton Woods Project highlights research showing that IMF policy advice has undermined a just energy transition since the Paris Agreement was signed.