With the World Bank's safeguards review due to be launched, indigenous groups and civil society organisations (CSOs) called for it to be rigorous and extensive. Meanwhile, the environmental and social track record of the Bank and its private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), has come under scrutiny in India, Colombia and Brazil.
Human rights
Finance
News
World Bank urged to review Rwandan support
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has asked the World Bank to review its support for Rwanda in the light of strong evidence of its "disregard of fundamental human rights", including killings of civilians, sexual violence, forced recruitment of children and torture.
Accountability
News
No IFC audit despite new Peru oil spill
In May, the Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman (CAO), the accountability mechanism of the International Finance Corporation (IFC, the Bank's private sector arm), closed the Maple Energy case, despite a new oil spill in April.
Rights
News
Indigenous peoples call on World Bank to respect their rights
A June letter to the incoming World Bank president Jim Yong Kim from 141 indigenous groups and civil society organisations called on the Bank for "positive engagement" to "put indigenous peoples at the centre of its development interventions ... respecting the[ir] rights ... and ensuring their full and effective participation".
Accountability
News
New claims of rights abuses in World Bank-funded 'land grabs'
As the World Bank held its Annual Conference on Land and Poverty in April, campaigners accused it once again of facilitating and legitimising 'land grabs' that harm local communities.
Accountability
News
World Bank's 'green growth' approach denounced
At the United Nations Rio+20 conference on sustainable development held in Brazil in late June, the World Bank promoted its 'green growth' approach despite concerns from civil society groups.
Environment
Commentary
An easy call: IFC should quit MRL mining project
The IFC should terminate its support to MRL's Philippine mining venture for not following their guidelines, and more than that, for ignoring the Philippine law concerning indigenous peoples.
Accountability
Commentary
Accountability squandered?
Despite a 2011 victory in Cambodia, where a mass eviction in the centre of Phnom Penh was halted and remaining affected families finally gained legal title to the land they had been wrongly denied under a World Bank project, recent arrests have put justice in jeopardy and led to calls for a continued lending freeze by the Bank.
Accountability
Background
EIR + 10
Minutes of afternoon sessions of extractives conference, Washington DC, 23 April 2012
Conditionality
Background
A Global Shared Societies Agenda
Minutes meeting for A Global Shared Societies Agenda
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