In a March briefing, US NGO Bank Information Center (BIC) detailed major risks surrounding the construction of the Rogun mega-dam in Tajikistan, for which the Bank is funding environmental and social impact assessments.
Human rights
Environment
News
World Bank ignoring forest communities?
The World Bank has come under fire for its Inspection Panel's decision on the forestry sector in Liberia, while new reports from civil society groups add to the growing backlog of criticism over the Bank's Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF).
Accountability
News
World Bank launches new Africa strategy
In March, the World Bank launched its new Africa strategy, outlining three main areas in which it will focus its operations: competitiveness and employment, vulnerability and resilience of citizens, and governance and public sector capacity.
Rights
News
World Bank increases extractives lending despite human rights abuses
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.
Accountability
Commentary
Cambodians denounce World Bank-funded land grab
We are the residents of Boeung Kak in Sras Choc commune, Phnom Penh, Cambodia who submitted a complaint to the World Bank Inspection Panel in September 2009. Our land rights, including our right to register our land, were unfairly denied by the World Bank-financed land-titling project.
Accountability
Commentary
IFC must demonstrate its commitment to respect human rights
In March 2011 60 civil society organisations published a statement addressing the final proposed draft of the International Finance Corporation's revised Sustainability Framework, which is intended to manage social and environmental risks associated with IFC activities.
Accountability
Background
Notes of meeting between UK Executive Director to World Bank and Civil Society Groups
On February 2nd 2011 civil society organisations held a meeting with the UK Executive Director to the World Bank and staff from the Department for International Development to discuss the formation of the new Green Climate Fund, the World Bank energy startegy review, and the role of the private sector in World Bank lending.
Land
News
World Bank-backed child labour in Uzbek agriculture
The Bank's support of agricultural in Uzbekistan has landed it in hot water suggesting that it does not take seriously the social implications of such lending.
Rights
News
IFC standards revision leaves out human rights
As the review of the performance standards of the International Finance Corporation’s (IFC), the World Bank's private sector lending arm, enters the last stretch, civil society groups are up in arms about the latest draft, which has taken steps backward, particularly in relation to the inclusion of human rights.
Infrastructure
Analysis
The role of the World Bank in carbon markets
This paper outlines the World Bank's involvement in the carbon market and reviews concerns about its impacts on greenhouse gas emission reductions and development.
Featured briefings
6 April 2022
The Bretton Woods Observer: Spring 2022
8 December 2021
The Bretton Woods Observer: Winter 2021
8 November 2021
IMF surveillance and climate change transition risks
New briefing by ActionAid USA and the Bretton Woods Project highlights research showing that IMF policy advice has undermined a just energy transition since the Paris Agreement was signed.