UN Special Rapporteur publishes report on IMF and social protection, calls on Fund to practice what it preaches.
Conditionality impacts
Conditionality
Analysis
Bad news for Argentina: The cruel IMF is back
As Argentina agrees to a $50 billion IMF loan, the ghost of loans past lingers, as protests erupt and strikes begin.
Conditionality
Analysis
Pro-poor or anti-poor? The World Bank and IMF’s approach to social protection
Stephen Kidd critiques Bretton Woods Institutions' approach to targeted social protection systems, arguing the poor lose out the most.
Conditionality
Commentary
Tunisians take to the streets over IMF-imposed austerity
Despite claiming to no longer support austerity, the IMF has imposed damaging cutbacks on the people of Tunisia as part of its loan conditionality, leading to widespread discontent on Tunisian streets.
Conditionality
News
New IMF conditionality database launched
Team of UK academics launch new, freely available IMF conditionality database.
Conditionality
News
Suriname walks away from IMF conditionalities
The government of Suriname has cancelled its loan programme with the IMF, claiming its conditionalities were too much to bear for its citizens.
Rights
Analysis
Civil society still waiting for ‘IMF Spring’ to blossom
Civil society was out in full force during annual meetings challenging the IMF’s claims that it is reducing economic and gender inequality.
Conditionality
News
IMF Ukraine programme’s impact on women’s rights criticised at Human Rights Council
WILPF submitted a statement to Human Rights Council criticising the IMF's Ukraine programme. The statement argued that the programme's harsh conditionalities hurt women in particular and called for a human rights based approach to macroeconomic policy making.
Conditionality
Analysis
The truth behind IMF’s claims to promote social protection in low-income countries
Newly published self-congratulatory IMF policy paper on impacts of loan programmes on social protection is self-referential and ignores available evidence.
Conditionality
Background
The IMF and World Bank policies and the Arab world’s transition economies
Notes from the Civil Society Policy Forum Session at the 2017 World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings on IMF and World Bank programmes in the MENA Region.
Featured briefings
27 September 2023
Financialisation and human rights in the Middle East and North Africa
This briefing explains how the IMF and World Bank have driven the financialisation of MENA states, and the pervasive negative effects this has had on the region’s societies and economies.
19 July 2023
The Bretton Woods Observer: Summer 2023
3 July 2023
Civil Society calls for rethink of World Bank’s ‘evolution roadmap’ as part of wider reforms to highly unequal global financial architecture
Joint civil society briefing paper highlights concerns with the World Bank’s Evolution Roadmap, and provides a series of recommendations for a Roadmap that prioritises people, participation and the planet over profit and economic growth.