ISSUE OVERVIEW: Human rights
26 September 2013
Human rights
IFI governance
News
Delays in Inspection Panel eligibility decision in Nepal risk “irreversible damage”
Panel yet to rule on case filed in April despite receiving consultant's report.
IFI governance
Analysis
Gambling with our lives: Global emergencies expose consequences of decades of IMF and World Bank policies
Market-led policy approaches increasingly used to deal with both climate and health emergencies are failing to protect those most vulnerable.
Conditionality
Commentary
Costa Rica resoundingly rejects IMF’s 'austericidal' recipe
Alternative progressive solutions reached by democratic and inclusive multi-sectoral dialogue.
Rights
Analysis
World Bank reparations demanded for murder of frontline South African anti-coal activist
Community demands reparations from World Bank for murder of South African environmental activist Fikile Ntshangase for opposing the Tendele coal mine initially financed by IFC.
Finance
News
IMF's continued VAT push inconsistent with rhetoric on progressive taxes
As the IMF celebrates the rise of VAT, women and those least able to pay are left behind in worsening inequality crisis.
Conditionality
News
Pakistan resists IMF measures that could “push more people into poverty”
IMF programme would result in increased electricity prices and regressive consumer tax hikes amid rising cost of living.
Social services
Background
World Bank Group’s ‘Maximizing Finance for Development’ in times of Covid-19
Notes from the virtual Civil Society Policy Forum at the 2020 World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings 5 October session on the World Bank's 'Maximizing Finance for Development' and the Covid-19 response.
IFI governance
Analysis
Annual Meetings 2020 Preamble: IMF and World Bank frontload austerity and privatisation in Covid-19 recovery, while the world calls for more inclusive multilateralism
As the inability of Bank and Fund to adapt their policies in response to the Covid-19 pandemic becomes more evident, hope turns to the UN system and a radical restructure of the global international financial architecture.
Accountability
Analysis
IFC and MIGA must ‘walk the accountability walk’ on the road mapped by independent review
Implementation in full of the independent review of IFC, MIGA and CAO is essential if institutions are to meet persistent accountability and remedy gaps.
Rights
Analysis
Repairing harm caused: What could a reparations approach mean for the IMF and World Bank?
It is time for the IMF and World Bank to understand their own responsibility and decolonise their approach.
Featured briefings
14 December 2020
Gambling with our lives: Global emergencies expose consequences of decades of IMF and World Bank policies
Market-led policy approaches increasingly used to deal with both climate and health emergencies are failing to protect those most vulnerable.
10 December 2020
The Bretton Woods Observer: Winter 2020
12 October 2020