Discussion of IFC and the financial crisis, climate change, performance standards and financial intermediaries
Safeguards
Infrastructure
Commentary
Human rights and the World Bank's energy policy
If the World Bank is a global inter-governmental institution devoted to reducing poverty, then its global duty should be to focus on achieving energy access for the poor, and certainly for the most vulnerable amongst the poor.
Rights
Commentary
The IFC and incorporation of rights into its performance standards
A submission to the U.N. Special Representative to the Secretary General on Human Rights and Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises, John Ruggie, highlights that the International Finance Corporation's performance standards, meant to serve as environmental and social safeguards in World Bank private sector lending, still lack substantive inclusion of human rights and are therefore inconsistent with Ruggie's framework. Furthermore, civil society has raised concerns about a 3 ye
Environment
Background
Consultation meeting on World Bank environmental strategy
Summary of the first consultation on their new environment strategy, which they will develop next year.
Rights
News
Concerns over IFC's upcoming performance standards review
The IFC has launched the three year review of their performance standards on social and environmental sustainability but civil society has raised concerns about the review and critiques remain with regard to the content of the standards.
Accountability
Background
Safeguard policies and performance standards
Originally drafted as internal operational policies to guide staff, World Bank safeguard policies evolved after pressure from environmental and social groups in the 1980s and were first officially implemented in 1998. They aim to protect people and the environment from the adverse effects of Bank-financed operations and are based on international agreements, even if these protections are not explicitly provided for in the borrower country's national law.
Accountability
News
Breaking the chains?
Violations of the IFC's performance standards in a palm oil project in Indonesia could have far reaching effects, drawing attention to the IFC's responsibility for the impact of whole supply chains as a review of their social and environmental standards gets under way.
Rights
News
The IFC: opportunist expansion?
The financial crisis has resulted in an expanded role for the International Finance Corporation (IFC), but its methods may leave a bitter taste with civil society.
Accountability
Analysis
Bretton Woods Project submission on the DFID White Paper
In a submission the the DFID white paper consultation, we set out the significant change needed at the World Bank and IMF to bring them into line both with international norms and with UK policy, in order to improve their contribution to sustainable development. In this submission we outline changes needed in: IFI governance; IFI conditionality policies; IFI policies related to aid effectiveness; IFI policy on climate change; private-sector finance; and the financial sector's impact on devel
IFI governance
Background
Compliance Advisory Ombudsman review of standards for Bank’s private sector lending
Notes of a session with the CAO at the World Bank spring meetings, Washington, DC, April 22, 2009.
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.