Early April saw the launch of the new World Bank Group strategy for engagement in the palm oil sector, which failed to resolve civil society concerns over several issues, including the rights of indigenous peoples and how performance standards will be applied across supply chains.
Land grabs
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
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.
Land
News
World Bank admits 'land grab' risks, proceeds anyway
A long-suppressed report by the World Bank remains supportive of large-scale land acquisitions in developing countries by foreign investors, despite highlighting significant risks for vulnerable populations. Civil society groups have argued that the Bank is complicit in violations of human rights associated with the so-called ‘land grabs’
Land
News
World Bank work on land supports "a new form of colonialism"
A set of voluntary principles for agricultural investment in developing countries, launched by the World Bank and other institutions in April, veils the promotion of investors' interests at the expense of host populations, warn civil society groups.
Environment
News
IFC lends a hand in great "land grab"
As the International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank, announces plans to increase investment in agribusiness by up to 30 per cent in the next three years, NGO reports shed light on the IFC's role in 'land grabs' and flaws in its approach to the food crisis.
Rights
Commentary
World Bank legitimising illegal Israeli occupation of West Bank
The Bank's approach to development in Palestine hinges on the full acceptance of the status quo - e.g. continued occupation and the presence of the settlements and the wall - as well as joint projects that impose PNA-Israeli cooperation, often with a third international partner. Politically, these development projects threaten to legitimise Israeli claims in regards to the wall, Jerusalem, land annexation and settlements that have resulted in the fragmentation and ghettoisation of the West Bank
Land
News
Failing small farmers: The World Bank and agriculture
Stinging from a critique from its own evaluation unit on its work on agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa, the World Bank released its flagship annual report on agriculture in October to heavy criticism from civil society.
Accountability
News
Public campaigns to reform IDA
In Europe, Asia and the United States, civil society has campaigned for reform of the World Bank through the replenishment process of the International Development Association.
Land
Analysis
WDR 2008 preview: a Bank draft for agricultural development?
The World Bank recently released a near-final version of its 2008 World Development Report on 'agriculture for development', ahead of the official release on 19 October.
Featured briefings
16 October 2024
The Bretton Woods Observer: Autumn 2024
16 October 2024
The lost call for international financial architecture reform in the G20
At the 80th anniversary of the World Bank and IMF, global civil society must maintain pressure on the Brazilian and South African G20 presidencies to ensure the forth Financing for Development Conference in 2025 results in urgently required international financial architecture reform.
16 October 2024
Sustainable development requires sustainable finance: why local currency financing is part of the solution
Multilateral development banks can reduce their dependence on hard currency lending and make local currency financing a central element of their developmental mandate.