Construction has restarted on the Sardar Sarovar (Narmada) dam, Western India, after a decision by the Supreme Court.
International
Private Sector
News
Confusion about WB private sector review
Government officials who negotiated contributions to the Bank’s IDA 12 lending window agreed with the Bank that “a clear private sector development strategy should be established for the World bank Group during the course of 1999 to guide the work of the IBRD, IDA, IFC and MIGA”.
Infrastructure
News
Dams Commission workplan nears completion
The World Commission on Dams has nearly completed its workplan and selected consultants to lead work on the thematic reviews.
Accountability
News
Corporate lobbying at the Bank exposed
A recent article in the Legal Times alleges that there is significant corporate lobbying of the World Bank.
News
Thanks for support
The Bretton Woods Project thanks the CS Mott Foundation and Christian Aid for their continued support.
Knowledge
News
Bank approach to social capital criticised
Ben Fine, Professor of Economics at SOAS, University of London, has produced a 30,000 word paper which reviews and severely critiques the World Bank’s approach to social capital.
Rights
News
Post-crisis social code diluted to weak Bank principles
There is danger that the aims and scope of the social principles (formerly the Social Code), which was proposed by Gordon Brown as a fourth pillar of the new international architecure, will be watered down to become simply a framework for the Bank’s social policy.
Accountability
News
Last ditch attempt to save Inspection Panel
On March 24 the World Bank Board will hold a special consultation session about likely changes to the Bank’s Independent Inspection Panel.
Finance
News
Scaffolding for global architecture
In late October the G7 took limited steps to strengthen the international financial architecture, after the World Bank-IMF annual meetings ended with a plethora of proposals but no substantive agreement.
Accountability
News
New Bank fraud hotline
The World Bank Group has set up a telephone hotline to provide a central point for reporting allegations of fraud and corruption.
Knowledge
News
Major new Bank report on aid
A major new Policy Research Report by the Bank argues that it is pointless to provide aid money to countries unless they have certain economic policies and a good institutional environment.
Knowledge
News
New Bank paradigm: Stiglitz and Fine approaches clash
In October World Bank Chief Economist Joe Stiglitz made another major speech going “beyond the well-documented failures of the Washington consensus to begin providing the foundations of an alternative paradigm”.
Featured briefings
6 April 2023
World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings 2023
5 April 2023
The IMF at the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: The need for governance reform
As the world celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is time the IMF’s shareholders use the opportunities provided by the anniversary and growing calls for reforms to the international financial architecture to redesign the IMF’s governance structures and programmes to ensure they are consistent with the commitments outlined in 1948 and with international human rights law.
5 April 2023
The global financial architecture and the international debt crisis: An urgent call for reform
Influence of unreformed international financial institutions and creditor interests in debt solutions in low- and middle-income countries plagued by delay and ineffective when undertaken.