World Bank Enabling the Business of Agriculture rankings prescribe land privatisation at the expense of family farmers, pastoralists, and Indigenous Peoples.
Land grabs
Land
Analysis
IFC investments implicated in land grabs in Africa
IFC investments through financial intermediary investments linked to land grabs and displacement in Africa. CSOs critique proposed changes to IFC lending policies.
Land
News
Potential Inspection Panel probe of Amaravati 'land grab' allegations deferred again
Panel received request to investigate allegations related to proposed World Bank loan in 2017.
Rights
Background
UK civil society meeting with Minister of State Desmond Swayne
Notes from a meeting on 7 September 2015 between the Minister of State of the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and civil society representatives, focusing on the World Bank's safeguards review.
IFI governance
Analysis
IFC 3.0: superficial upgrades, same problems?
As the IFC sets out a new strategy, CAO and CSO reports have raised further criticism over its investment in financial intermediaries, and a new law suit challenges its immunity.
Land
News
Eggs thrown at World Bank Cambodia headquarters
Evictees and affected families of Cambodia's Boeng Kak and Borei Keila neighborhoods have called on the World Bank to leave Cambodia, as lending programme resumes.
Land
News
NGOs denounce World Bank land conference
NGO coalition Our Land Our Business denounced the World Bank’s March conference on land and poverty, condemning the Bank’s role in land grabs.
IFI governance
Background
CSO land rights and resettlement
Notes of a meeting with CSOs on land rights and resettlement at the World Bank-IMF annual meetings 2014
Private Sector
Analysis
New report shows IFC FI investments cause human rights abuses around the world
New evidence from Oxfam, the Bretton Woods Project and other NGOs reveals the impact of IFC investments in financial intermediaries on global human rights.
Land
News
World Bank targeted over role in land grabs
As activists staged global protests highlighting the potential damage from new World Bank agriculture rankings, Cambodian groups expressed concerns over reports that the Bank is considering resuming loans to Cambodia.
Featured briefings
15 August 2019
The World Bank and gender equality: Development Policy Financing
New BWP briefing offers critical gender analysis of World Bank lending instrument to borrowing countries.
30 July 2019
The Bretton Woods Observer: Summer 2019
30 July 2019
The Bretton Woods Institutions and the second crisis of multilateralism
At 75, the World Bank and IMF face a crisis of multilateralism in no small part of their own making as failed economic policies have resulted in skepticism of the international order they helped to create.