World Bank confirms cancellation of controversial tourism project in Tanzania, after over 2 years of civil society campaigning.
Land grabs
Land
News
Guinean communities’ complaint against IFC-financed bauxite mine enters dispute resolution
CAO convenes process after February complaint alleged land grabbing, negative livelihood impacts.
IFI governance
Background
Agriculture, financialization, and gender: Exploring the World Bank’s response to interlinked phenomena
Notes from the Civil Society Policy Forum on 17 April 2024 titled "Agriculture, financialization, and gender: Exploring the World Bank’s response to interlinked phenomena"
Land
News
World Bank land tenure approach contributes to displacement and food insecurity
The World Bank’s efforts to increase security of land tenure have largely amounted to a ‘formalisation’ of land property rights, which reinforce land inequalities and the disenfranchisement of rural peoples.
Land
News
Honduras threatens ICSID withdrawal over $11 billion ‘neo-colonial’ special economic zone claim
Compensation claim before WorldBank’s ICSID raises questions about the value of special economic zones and fairness of ISDS mechanisms for Global South states.
Accountability
Analysis
Ending “absolute immunity” for the International Finance Corporation: The legacy of Jam v. IFC
EarthRights International examines how the Jam v. IFC case has helped to shift the landscape of accountability for international financial institutions by successfully challenging their claim to “absolute” immunity in US courts, potentially opening IFC up to further legal challenges in future.
Land
Analysis
The World Bank’s investments in the Great Green Wall: A desert mirage?
World Bank commits to invest additional $5 billion in the Great Green Wall over the next five years, despite shortcomings in its existing investments in the initiative highlighted by IEG.
Rights
Analysis
Latin American Indigenous Peoples call on World Bank to safeguard their rights
Latin American Indigenous Peoples call on the World Bank to safeguard their rights and ensure its programmes are based on their own proposals.
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.
Land
Analysis
The highest bidder takes it all: The World Bank's new scheme to privatise land in the Global South
World Bank Enabling the Business of Agriculture rankings prescribe land privatisation at the expense of family farmers, pastoralists, and Indigenous Peoples.
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