The World Bank Group promotes a model of social protection via poverty-targeted programmes that are error-strewn and can cause social unease, and set back progress towards universal social protection.
Social protection
Social services
News
World Bank’s definition of ‘universal’ social protection - another buzzword?
World Bank’s newly released Social Protection and Jobs Compass guidance note creates confusion over the Bank’s definition of ‘universal’ social protection.
Social services
News
Sri Lankan trade unions call out IMF and World Bank's dismantling of country’s social protection system in favour of ineffective targeting schemes
Sri Lankan trade unions call out IMF and World Bank's dismantling of country’s social protection system in favor of ineffective targeting schemes.
Social services
News
CSOs express concern about IMF’s “strongly divergent” social protection approach
Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors submits letter to the IMF expressing concerns about impacts of Fund's policies on social protection.
Social services
News
World Bank's new gender strategy: Concerns about approach to social protection and gender-blind macroeconomic reforms remain
With the World Bank’s current gender strategy set to expire next year, care and social protection emerge as a possible focus, but CSOs remain skeptical that Bank's private sector-led approach will deliver on women's rights.
Conditionality
Background
Fiscal space for universal health and social protection post Covid-19 pandemic: How to prevent austerity
Notes from the Civil Society Policy Forum Session on 2 October.
Social services
Analysis
The IMF's approach to social protection and the crisis of multilateralism
UN Special Rapporteur publishes report on IMF and social protection, calls on Fund to practice what it preaches.
Social services
Analysis
Pro-poor or anti-poor? The World Bank and IMF’s approach to social protection
Stephen Kidd critiques Bretton Woods Institutions' approach to targeted social protection systems, arguing the poor lose out the most.
Social services
News
IEO finds IMF follows "nebulous standard" on social protection engagement
IMF’s Independent Evaluation Office published evaluation on IMF and social protection and found that the IMF’s targeting approach does not ‘mesh well’ with UN’s human-rights-based approach.
Social services
Analysis
The truth behind IMF’s claims to promote social protection in low-income countries
Newly published self-congratulatory IMF policy paper on impacts of loan programmes on social protection is self-referential and ignores available evidence.
Featured briefings
3 July 2024
The Bretton Woods Observer: Summer 2024
3 July 2024
Is the World Bank rolling back commitments to citizen engagement, again?
Understanding the Bank’s chequered history with public, community and civil society participation is key for understanding what is at stake and what to do next.
3 June 2024
A way out for IMF reform
New paper analyses the IMF 16th Quota Review and identifies key governance reforms feasible in the current economic and geopolitical context.