For the last several years the World Bank and IMF have squared off against governments, NGOs, UN agencies and even each other over the concept of ‘fiscal space’. This often nebulous and ill-defined term has caused much confusion. Nancy Alexander finds that at the heart of the matter is a difference of opinion over how and when governments should be allowed to invest in both infrastructure and basic services.
Macroeconomic policy
Conditionality
News
Growth commission gears up
The World Bank-funded Commission on Growth and Development will hold workshops in New York on 'Growth and Some of its Micro and Macro Foundations' (April 9) and 'The Role of Leadership and Governance in Shaping and Implementing Growth Strategies' (April 10).
Conditionality
News
Evaluation finds that IMF misleads the public about its role in Africa
A report released by the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) of the IMF criticises the role of the IMF in managing aid inflows to Sub-Saharan Africa, but fails to address more fundamental questions about the Fund’s role in low-income countries.
Conditionality
News
Ortega opts for new PRGF for Nicaragua
Newly elected Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega and his Sandinista party are presenting two different faces to the IMF.
Conditionality
News
Ecuador, Philippines repay IMF debt
Newly elected Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa, announced in January that he would make early repayments of his country’s $33 million debt to the IMF.
Rights
News
Bank mining advice boosts private profits
Two recent reports question the World Bank's involvement in the mining sector.
Land
Commentary
World Bank reconstruction role in Timor-Leste creating problems
Guteriano Nicolau S. Neves of the La'o Hamutuk Institute in Dili argues for a critical appraisal of the World Bank's role in the reconstruction of Timor Leste.
Conditionality
News
IMF wants tax on mosquito nets in Zambia
The IMF provoked public ire in Zambia by asking the government to remove value added tax exemptions on a range of goods, including mosquito nets used to fight malaria.
Conditionality
News
Dominican Republic taxes at IMF “gun point”
A controversial tax reform programme in the Dominican Republic was forced onto the country by the IMF, in the words of finance minister Vicente Bengoa, “at gun point”.
Accountability
Analysis
Research, knowledge and the art of “paradigm maintenance”
Robin Broad, professor in the School of International Service at American University, describes six mechanisms by which the World Bank's development economics vice-presidency performs a "paradigm-maintenance" role, privileging individuals whose work "resonates" with the neo-liberal free-market ideology.
