The United Nations Development Programmes annual Human Development Report, released in June, treats human rights as essential for development and sees development as a means to realize human rights.
Human rights
Rights
News
Bank to seek capital increase
It looks likely that the World Bank Group will seek a rare capital increase for its International Bank for Reconstruction and Development arm.
Rights
News
China arrests project monitors
On 15 August the Chinese Government arrested three people for trying to investigate the World Bank Western Poverty Project.
Rights
News
Call to halt aid after Timorese massacres
Massacres perpetrated and condoned by the Indonesian army have led to calls to halt World Bank and IMF aid programmes to Indonesia.
Rights
News
Confronting Gender Inequities and Political Disempowerment
The Women’s Eyes campaign was launched by women’s movements and NGOs to monitor World Bank progress in bringing its lending operations in line with the Platform for Action of the Fourth World Conference on Women Beijing Women’s Summit in 1995.
Infrastructure
News
Chad-Cameroon discussions reach peak
The Bank is due to decide in the next few weeks whether to support the Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline.
Environment
News
Exchange highlights continuing Bank resettlement problems in India
At the half-way mark of the Bank’s controversial Coal India Environmental and Social Mitigation project local groups have criticised aspects of resettlement implementation.
IFI governance
News
IFC slammed by Anthropologists Association
In April Jane Hill, President of the American Anthropological Association, wrote a strong letter to Bank Group President James Wolfensohn and Carol Lee, IFC Vice President and General Counsel.
Rights
News
Social aspects of WB analysis under scrutiny
A lead article in Development Anthropologist contains a fascinating account of the World Bank’s approach to social issues.
Featured briefings
7 October 2021
World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings 2021
30 September 2021
The Bretton Woods Observer: Autumn 2021
29 September 2021
World Bank’s plans for Indonesia: Delayed action on climate and continued coal and gas support
Indonesian civil society have raised concerns that the World Bank is promoting gas and supporting further coal expansion in its new Country Partnership Framework.