Since the financial crisis, the IMF's rhetoric has tried to be nuanced about austerity policies and the need to stimulate growth, but critics says its actions risk pushing the world back into recession and hurting workers.
Macroeconomic policy
Social services
News
Bondholders vs the public: Outcry over IMF-EU eurozone loans
The sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone, where Greece now needs a second round of loans, threatens major economies like Spain and Italy, but IMF-backed lending packages that demand deep austerity with insufficient attention to lenders' responsibilities anger the public.
Accountability
News
IFC financial intermediary lending: cause for complaint?
A case filed by communities in India has prompted the first internal probe of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Bank’s private sector arm, for its lending through financial intermediaries, highlighting concerns about the transparency and effectiveness of this lending.
Conditionality
News
IMF agrees new reserve adequacy metrics
In early March, the IMF board agreed to the use of new ways of measuring whether a country's foreign exchange reserve were adequate.
Conditionality
News
IMF policy, but not practice? Regressive tax in Pakistan
The IMF is withholding part of a loan to Pakistan over its failure to raise consumption taxes or decrease spending, but IMF-led reforms fail to address the under-taxation of the country's wealthy elite. The IMF's official approach to tax policy advice, articulated in a March board paper, shows a new appreciation for the distributional effects of taxation, but policy has not translated into practice.
Land
News
Unease over Bank approach to global food crisis
NGO criticism of the World Bank's market-based approach to the global food crisis, particularly with regard to foreign agricultural investment, increased in recent months, while the Bank reiterated its existing position in April meetings.
Rights
News
IMF's European austerity drive goes on
The IMF programme in Portugal highlights the heavy conditionality attached to loans. Meanwhile, a big, and very public, fight is brewing over debt in Greece, where the IMF denies any problems.
IFI governance
Background
IMF triennial surveillance review
Notes of meeting, Washington DC, April 13, 2011
Finance
Background
Meeting between the UK IMF Executive Director Alex Gibbs, HM Treasury and UK civil society organisat
Notes of the seminar of spring meetings 2011
Knowledge
News
World Bank research impact questioned
World Bank evaluations of the influence of its research and reports paint a mixed picture.
Featured briefings
6 April 2022
The Bretton Woods Observer: Spring 2022
8 December 2021
The Bretton Woods Observer: Winter 2021
8 November 2021
IMF surveillance and climate change transition risks
New briefing by ActionAid USA and the Bretton Woods Project highlights research showing that IMF policy advice has undermined a just energy transition since the Paris Agreement was signed.