As IFC launches consultation on draft Principles, its declining development outcome performance as 'first impact investor' provides useful point of departure.
Financial sector
Private Sector
News
CSOs call on World Bank to halt its aggressive support of PPPs
152 CSOs call demand World Bank halt its aggressive support of PPPs, publicaly recognise their significant risks.
Private Sector
Analysis
How the Bank’s push for microcredit failed the poor
Originally created to help the poor escape poverty and deprivation, the World Bank became the most important advocate for the commercialised microcredit model. Yet, critics argued it undermined the chances of sustainable and equitable development to create a poverty trap of historic proportions.
Land
Analysis
IFC investments implicated in land grabs in Africa
IFC investments through financial intermediary investments linked to land grabs and displacement in Africa. CSOs critique proposed changes to IFC lending policies.
Private Sector
Background
Why impact investments can be an effective tool for social development
Notes of spring meeting session on impact investments, 18 April.
Finance
Analysis
What is left of the rise of the South?
While the recent reforms to the IMF and World Bank governance reforms and the establishment of new Southern-led IFIs are symbolically important, they are thus far not a rupture with the Western-dominated international financial architecture.
Private Sector
Background
Examining the IFC’s climate and forest footprint in its financial sector investments
Notes from a side event at the IMF/World Bank 2016 annual meetings on how the World Bank Group can ensure that its financial intermediary investments are consistent with its forest and climate commitments.
Private Sector
News
IFC investments through financial intermediaries linked to human rights abuses in Honduras, again
A new complaint was lodged with the CAO regarding an IFC financial intermediary investment in Honduras, while another financial intermediary case, previously linked to the IFC, escalate into violence.
Finance
News
UN vote supports calls for independent debt crisis response mechanism outside the IMF
UN votes in favour of accepting new principles to guide sovereign debt restructuring, as CSO report warns of risk of new crises linked to aid and multilateral lending.
Private Sector
Analysis
New report shows IFC FI investments cause human rights abuses around the world
New evidence from Oxfam, the Bretton Woods Project and other NGOs reveals the impact of IFC investments in financial intermediaries on global human rights.
Featured briefings
6 December 2018
The Bretton Woods Observer: Winter 2018
3 October 2018
The Bretton Woods Observer: World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings 2018
28 September 2018
The World Bank's role in crafting a neoliberal hegemony with a feminist face
The World Bank’s recent gender equality approach constitutes an attempt at establishing a consensus over the regulation of the economy.