Bank’s $3.75 billion loan in 2010 has failed to deliver reliable energy to South African users, despite eye-watering cost overruns.
Energy
Infrastructure
News
World Bank reconsiders support for coal in Kosovo
Bank commissions energy options study, which will explore alternate electricity sources.
Rights
News
CAO released damning audit of IFC hydro project in Guatemala
CAO audit finds IFC failed to identify gaps in project’s social and environmental assessment, while communities impacted by the project face impacts on water source, livelihoods and levels of violence.
Environment
News
Shared prosperity? WBG fails to progress on energy access for poor
A new civil society report criticises the World Bank for not doing enough to help meet Sustainable Energy for All (SEforAll) objective of achieving universal energy access by 2030.
Infrastructure
Background
Getting energy access right - Trends and lessons learned in public finance
Notes from a meeting at the IMF/World Bank 2017 spring meetings on energy access.
Infrastructure
Analysis
The rise and fall of World Bank funded megaprojects
The World Bank has announced funding for the controversial Southern Gas Corridor, while exiting two other high profile but problematic megaprojects, Inga 3 in Democratic Republic of Congo and Simandou in Guinea.
Rights
News
World Bank-funded Kenya company targets complainants
Community representatives involved in a World Bank Inspection Panel complaint have been targeted with a court injunction by a Bank-funded company.
Infrastructure
News
Report calls on the World Bank not to invest in Kosovo power plant
A report has cast further doubts on the viability and efficiency of the proposed lignite coal power plant in Kosovo which the World Bank is considering supporting.
Infrastructure
Commentary
Powerless: a call for World Bank community engagement in Nepal
Following a longstanding conflict over a World Bank-funded power line in Nepal, communities call for a fair dispute resolution process and meaningful consultation.
Environment
Analysis
Clean Technology Fund (CTF)
An impending shortfall in available resources for the Clean Technology Fund continues to concern, leading to cancellation of projects. Questions were raised about development impacts and reliance on geothermal energy in India and Indonesia's revised investment plans, and on debt sustainability in a Caribbean project.
Featured briefings
15 August 2019
The World Bank and gender equality: Development Policy Financing
New BWP briefing offers critical gender analysis of World Bank lending instrument to borrowing countries.
30 July 2019
The Bretton Woods Observer: Summer 2019
30 July 2019
The Bretton Woods Institutions and the second crisis of multilateralism
At 75, the World Bank and IMF face a crisis of multilateralism in no small part of their own making as failed economic policies have resulted in skepticism of the international order they helped to create.