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.
Land grabs
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.
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.
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
Land
News
CAO investigation: IFC-linked rubber firm project paused
An IFC-linked Vietnamese rubber plantation company agreed to temporarily suspend activities in three Cambodian plantations, but activists urged the company to cease its activities in all communities.
Rights
News
Evicted Nigerian residents denied full investigation by World Bank’s Inspection Panel
Some 9,000 evicted residents of a Lagos community have been denied justice by the World Bank's Inspection Panel as Amnesty International says the Bank is "complicit" in the process.
Rights
News
Tajikistan’s proposed mega-dam spells disaster for local communities
Whilst the World Bank’s assessment gives the green light to the world’s tallest dam in Tajikistan, a Human Rights Watch report highlights severe damage to local communities.
Land
Analysis
Corporatising agriculture
World Bank’s Benchmarking the Business of Agriculture rankings are unlikely to benefit the world’s smallholder farmers, but could instead facilitate corporate land grabs.
Private Sector
Analysis
IFC funding to financial intermediaries: unfit for purpose
An IFC investment in ANZ Royal Bank has been criticised after the bank was implicated in a “massive land grab” in Cambodia. Further cases from Guatemala and Honduras reinforce calls for IFC to rethink its investments in financial intermediaries.
Featured briefings
6 April 2023
World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings 2023
5 April 2023
The IMF at the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: The need for governance reform
As the world celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is time the IMF’s shareholders use the opportunities provided by the anniversary and growing calls for reforms to the international financial architecture to redesign the IMF’s governance structures and programmes to ensure they are consistent with the commitments outlined in 1948 and with international human rights law.
5 April 2023
The global financial architecture and the international debt crisis: An urgent call for reform
Influence of unreformed international financial institutions and creditor interests in debt solutions in low- and middle-income countries plagued by delay and ineffective when undertaken.