IFC accountability mechanism formally links World Bank client to human rights abuses on palm oil project in Honduras, and highlights systemic problems with IFC procedures.
Displacement
Infrastructure
News
World Bank infrastucture support: "finance as extraction"
While India is pushing for the World Bank’s Global Infrastructure Facility, the US voted against IFC support for a Saudi Arabian corporation linked to coal power and an Inspection Panel case was registered for a Nepal power transmission project. Concerns were also raised on infrastructure projects in India, Nepal and Burma.
Rights
News
Nigeria forced evictions case before Inspection Panel
A case of forced evictions in the Nigerian city of Lagos has been submitted to the World Bank's Inspection Panel.
Environment
Analysis
Kenya evictions: foreshadowing future World Bank forest work?
Indigenous peoples have been evicted from their forests by a conservation project in Kenya funded by the World Bank. The Bank is currently drafting a new forests action plan.
Finance
Analysis
The IFIs in 2013: year in review
The Bretton Woods Project review of the most important developments at the World Bank and IMF in 2013.
Private Sector
Analysis
IFC financed 'land grabs' in Cambodia, Laos and Honduras exposed
While the World Bank's leadership is further embracing private equity funds, the IFC's investment in financial intermediaries is again hitting the headlines over allegations of 'land grabs' in South East Asia and lack of respect for indigenous people's rights in Honduras.
Rights
News
Ethiopia refuses Inspection Panel investigation
Ethiopia has said that it will not cooperate in a proposed investigation by the World Bank's accountability mechanism, the Inspection Panel (IP), into a programme linked to the Bank that according to the indigenous peoples filing the complaint led to "forced villagisation".
Rights
News
Safeguards: World Bank urged to incorporate human rights commitments "in all of its activities"
As the consultations on the World Bank's safeguards review progress, indigenous peoples groups and NGOs raised concerns over the process. There were also increased calls for the Bank to respect human rights in its policies, including a report from a UN Special Rapporteur.
Accountability
News
IFC Honduran client linked to death squads
The International Finance Corporation (IFC, the Bank's private sector arm) loan to Honduran palm oil producer Corporaci
Environment
News
IFC-funded mines: still courting controversy
Following a year of violence associated with IFC-funded mining projects, the IFC's mining investments in Guatemala, Mongolia, Peru and Colombia are still provoking controversy.
Featured briefings
6 April 2023
World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings 2023
5 April 2023
The IMF at the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: The need for governance reform
As the world celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is time the IMF’s shareholders use the opportunities provided by the anniversary and growing calls for reforms to the international financial architecture to redesign the IMF’s governance structures and programmes to ensure they are consistent with the commitments outlined in 1948 and with international human rights law.
5 April 2023
The global financial architecture and the international debt crisis: An urgent call for reform
Influence of unreformed international financial institutions and creditor interests in debt solutions in low- and middle-income countries plagued by delay and ineffective when undertaken.