The international financial system’s reliance upon credit ratings – usually based on dubious premises – needs urgent rethinking.
Macroeconomic policy
Finance
Analysis
The IMF and World Bank-led Covid-19 recovery: ‘Building back better’ or locking in broken policies?
Early evidence suggests IMF programmes are maintaining long-term fiscal consolidation targets, while World Bank further continues Maximizing Finance for Development narrative amidst Covid-19 crisis.
Conditionality
Analysis
The IMF’s role in the devastating impacts of Covid-19 – the case of Ecuador
IMF-backed austerity measures starved health sector prior to pandemic, yet Fund continues to prescribe devastating long-term fiscal consolidation.
Gender
News
UN holds Pakistan to account for IMF programme impacts on women
Concerns raised about IMF conditions pushing women back into poverty and informal work.
Gender
News
Letter to IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva on women's rights and gender equality
Over 60 civil society organisations call on the IMF to focus on the harmful impacts of its own policy advice on women's rights and gender equality.
Conditionality
Analysis
IMF and World Bank complicit in ‘austerity as new normal’, despite availability of alternatives
UN organisations build consensus on need to expand fiscal space, as IMF and World Bank continue to push austerity.
Finance
Background
Taxes, Taxes, Taxes: Shifting the IFI Narrative to Progressive Gender-just Taxation
Notes from the Civil Society Policy Forum session on 12 April on the changing international tax landscape from a feminist perspective and challenging IFIs’ role in shaping it at the World Bank and IMF's 2019 Spring Meetings.
Conditionality
Commentary
Unsustainable? The IMF’s approach to the Sustainable Development Goals
As the IMF publishes new SDG site, meaningful policy realignment remains lacking while business-as-usual continues at IMF.
Gender
Analysis
The IMF and Gender Equality: Operationalising Change
Latest IMF guidance on gender issues raises more questions than answers as it opens the door to impact assessments and alternative macro policies.
Conditionality
Analysis
The impacts of IMF-backed austerity on women’s rights in Brazil
The IMF and World Bank-endorsed 20 year spending freeze in Brazil disproportionately impacts women and other marginalised groups, despite less harmful alternatives being available
