The Bank management response to the recommendations of the Extractive Industries Review was released 18 June to widespread criticism.
Safeguards
Rights
News
Middle-income strategy threatens safeguards
A coalition of NGOs led by International Rivers Network has raised alarm bells that a proposed World Bank middle income country strategy will seriously weaken policies meant to protect vulnerable groups and the environment.
Infrastructure
Commentary
The World Bank's high-risk hypocrisy
the World Bank is not serious about the social and environmental policies it trumpets at global conferences. Senior World Bank staff in its India office indicated that they neither know nor care about procedures that are supposed to make its infrastructure lending socially responsible. This represents institutional hypocrisy.
Environment
News
Indigenous Peoples Policy delayed
On 20 October, World Bank Vice President Ian Johnson responded to Extractive Industries Review Eminent Person Emil Salim confirming that the Bank will delay finalisation of the Indigenous Peoples Policy until the first quarter of 2004.
Rights
News
New book examines key Bank accountability mechanism
A book assesses the impact of the World Bank Inspection Panel which hears grievances of project-affected people.
Environment
News
Pipeline approval sparks renewed criticism of Bank role
An outcry from NGOs has followed the World Bank Group decision to invest in a Central Asian oilfield and pipeline development.
Rights
Analysis
World Bank social and environmental policies: abandoning responsibility?
The World Bank is planning a controversial major overhaul of its ten social and environmental policies.
Environment
News
Controversial extractives review nears endgame
Emil Salim, the 'Eminent Person' in charge of the Bank's Extractive Industry Review (EIR), has…
Environment
News
World Bank announces renewed big infrastructure push
The World Bank President has pledged that the Bank will revive its support for megaprojects and a new report expresses serious concerns about the Bank's track record in this area.
IFI governance
Analysis
G-7, civil society press for IMF, World Bank transparency reforms
The World Bank and the IMF have responded to complaints about their lack of transparency by issuing mountains of documentation and offering innumerable meetings and consultations. But critics are still not satisfied, pointing to the difficulty for people to find and interpret many of the documents produced, and to the opacity of the institutions’ key decision-making bodies.