Government officials met the World Bank in March to discuss new criteria for allocating its IDA (soft loan) resources among countries.
Conditionality impacts
Conditionality
News
Brazilians protest spending cuts
Brazilian NGOs, trade unions, students and opposition parties protested outside the World Bank’s office in Brasilia against the government’s agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Bank’s decision to suspend loans to two state governments.
Finance
Analysis
Assessing Assessing Aid
A discussion and critique of the main points in a prominent World Bank report on aid policy and conditionality - “Assessing Aid, What Works, What Doesn’t and Why”. The Bank’s report is very frank about the many failures of aid financing, but its proposals of targeting finance to good performing countries are controversial (1999).
Conditionality
News
Brazil stabilisation means cuts for key donor projects
The IMF with multilateral banks and other donors has agreed a $41bn package to help Brazil fend off international currency speculators.
Conditionality
News
WB/IMF collaboration plans
In response to the external ESAF Review, the World Bank is to collaborate with the IMF in pilot projects in Nicaragua, Vietnam, Tajikistan, Ethiopia, Cameroon and Zimbabwe over the next 12-18 months.
Conditionality
News
ESAF review: new IMF strategy urged
More flexibility and a new approach was suggested in the external review of the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility (IMF loans to poorer countries) published in March.
Conditionality
News
Trigger conditions explained
A country assistance strategy (CAS) identifies “high”, “base” and “low” case lending scenarios - which one a country initially receives depends on its economic prospects.
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.