Civil society groups have accused the World Bank of failing to foresee or respond to human rights abuses in the Bank-sponsored Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline in the Caucasus and Turkey, just as the Bank announces a boost in investments in extractive industries.
Extractives
Accountability
News
Unprecedented ruling on IFC immunity
Ghana's Supreme Court ruled in January that the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Bank's private sector lending arm, is not immune from legal action in the country.
Environment
IFC ignores rights in the Philippines?
The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank's private sector lending arm, has been accused of neglecting the rights of indigenous people in the Philippines.
Environment
News
National responses to World Bank's energy strategy review
An October report by UK NGO Christian Aid, Energy for our common future, brings together responses by civil society groups in India, Bolivia, Peru and South Africa to the World Bank's energy strategy review.
Environment
Background
Energy, Poverty, Sustainability and Climate Change
Minutes of a seminar at the 2010 annual meetings, 8 October 2010
Accountability
Background
Meeting on the World Bank between DFID and UK NGOs
Notes of a meeting between UK civil society and DFID staff.
Environment
News
Undermining development? IFIs' role in extractive industries in disarray
Ongoing mining projects’ impacts on rights, gender and the environment suggest a new approach to the sector is needed, as the IMF and World Bank dole out contradictory advice on mining revenues.
Environment
News
World Bank coal lending up amid energy furore
Energy policy at the World Bank remains controversial, with escalating lending to coal projects and a delay to the energy strategy review. Past Bank-financed energy projects in Ghana and Albania are also proving problematic.
Accountability
News
Gender-blindness and conditionality cast shadow over record World Bank lending
New evidence of worsening gender performance and persistent conditionality has led critics to ask if the Bank is fit for purpose.
Environment
Commentary
Eskom loan blackens the World Bank's name
The World Bank, Business Unity South Africa and the African National Congress got their way with a major loan for Eskom, the national power authority, despite broad based opposition from local people, the poor, community organisations, the churches, unions, and environmental and social justice NGOs locally and globally.
Featured briefings
12 December 2024
The Bretton Woods Observer: Winter 2024
16 October 2024
The Bretton Woods Observer: Autumn 2024
16 October 2024
The lost call for international financial architecture reform in the G20
At the 80th anniversary of the World Bank and IMF, global civil society must maintain pressure on the Brazilian and South African G20 presidencies to ensure the forth Financing for Development Conference in 2025 results in urgently required international financial architecture reform.