IMF’s new report looking at the impact of the $650 billion SDR allocation in 2021 talks about the benefits of the allocation for the global economy but fails to address the scale of the polycrisis.
Global architecture
Finance
Analysis
Assessing the Bretton Woods Institutions’ legacy
New collection of critical essays by authors from MENA and Sub-Saharan Africa do a retrospective of the BWIs involvement in the region, and the legacy of BWIs-supported unjust and extractionist world economic order.
Finance
Analysis
Reconceptualising Special Drawing Rights as a tool for development finance
Briefing examines the shortcomings of the current SDRs allocation system and calls to reform SDRs to ensure their targeted, needs-based and equitable distribution.
Finance
Analysis
UN Financing for Development: The best chance to democratise global economic governance?
As Bretton Woods Institutions fail to deliver transformative, systematic reform of deeply unequal global architecture, countries should embrace a more democratic space: the United Nations Financing for Development process
Finance
News
African finance ministers join growing calls for more equitable SDR allocations
New calls for SDR reform reveal acute need of financing for low- and middle-income countries to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
Finance
News
A different ‘evolution roadmap’: Havana conference calls for changes in world order hierarchy
As IMF and World Bank tinker at margins, 50 policymakers, diplomats and academics from over 26 countries issue Havana Declaration calling for an assertion of Southern power and the building of a new "planetary bloc".
Finance
Analysis
World Bank Group Evolution: Technical fixes or urgently needed reform?
World Bank Evolution Roadmap’s proposed superficial technical patches favouring the ‘logic’ of the market will likely fail to deliver the structural changes needed to support borrowing countries amidst global crises.
Finance
Analysis
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.
Finance
Analysis
G20 review calls for increased MDB lending as World Bank ignores urgent need for policy changes
G20 independent review calls for increased lending by multilateral development banks to address multiple crises, but lack of reform in World Bank crises response framework raises concerns about how it would use additional resources.
Finance
Commentary
Quota reform needed at IMF in order to address 21st century challenges
As economic conditions worsen and the Fund's legitimacy comes under increasing pressure, IMF leaders gathering for the Annual Meetings must make progress on ongoing review of IMF quotas and agree a more equitable formula and distribution of voting power.
Featured briefings
9 June 2025
New data reveal World Bank DPF ‘climate finance’ carries strong private sector bias, undermining a just transition
New BWP briefing finds the World Bank counted 70 per cent of energy-sector reforms in Development Policy Financing as having 'climate co-benefits' between 2018-2023 - but most of these promoted a private-led energy transition.
15 April 2025
The Bretton Woods Observer: Spring 2025
2 April 2025