Aldo Caliari Monetary policy changes in rich world are now starting – the reversal of…
East Asia & Pacific
IFI governance
Background
Mega-project mania?
Sponsors: Heinrich Boell Foundation, Bretton Woods Project, Latindadd, Pacific Environment, International Rivers, European Network on…
Infrastructure
Background
Energy sector trends
Sponsors: Bretton Woods Project, Mott Foundation, Heinrich Boell Foundation-North America, Latindadd, Pacific Environment, International Rivers,…
IFI governance
Background
CSO roundtable with World Bank Group executive directors
Sponsor: World Bank Group Panelists: Merza Hassan (Executive Director for Kuwait, and Dean of the…
Gender
News
World Bank admits gender equality not just about growth
World Bank's new companion report to its 2012 World Development Report reveals a shift in thinking, acknowledging that for gender equality, the type of eonomic growth is hugely relevant
Private Sector
Analysis
IFC funding to financial intermediaries: unfit for purpose
An IFC investment in ANZ Royal Bank has been criticised after the bank was implicated in a “massive land grab” in Cambodia. Further cases from Guatemala and Honduras reinforce calls for IFC to rethink its investments in financial intermediaries.
Environment
Analysis
World Bank’s climate change crusade: rhetoric or reality?
The World Bank is focussing significant time and resources into promoting itself as an agent for tackling climate change, but is still funds dirty energy through coal and gas projects, most recently in China.
Rights
News
World Bank blamed over 1965 Indonesia massacres
Images from an Oscar-nominated documentary exploring the history of Indonesia’s Suharto government and the killing of an estimated 1 million Indonesians during the 1960s has been screened on the walls of the World Bank to pressure it to acknowledge its support for Suharto.
Rights
News
World Bank accused of resettlement “cultural genocide”
A series of high-profile eviction cases in Kenya, Nigeria and Cambodia has exposed the World Bank’s failure to protect the human rights of communities supposed to benefit from its projects, prompting widespread international condemnation.
Finance
Analysis
BRICS Bank: New bottle, how’s the wine?
Last year BRICS' leaders agreed to launch a BRICS development bank. Whether this is considered positive depends in part what questions are being asked. Sameer Dossani of ActionAid International highlights the flaws in the World Bank and IMF, analyses whether a BRICS Bank could be different from these institutions and proposes what it should do and what it should look like.
Private Sector
News
Response letter to the head of IFC Jin-Yong Cai re: IFC investment in the financial sector
This letter was written to respond to an IFC 6 January 2014 reply to a November 2013 civil society letter about the International Finance Corporation’s action plan to reform lending to the financial sector. The 26 groups signed on to the letter believe the IFC’s action plan is inadequate and urge the head of the IFC to do more to address the audit’s findings.
Social services
News
World Bank’s Burma spending spree
The World Bank has announced big spending programmes in health, electricity and telecoms in Burma, however, critics point to its failure to protect human rights or consult properly with civil society.
