A small committee has been set up to investigate whether to reform the IMF’s formula for allocating votes between countries on its Board.
International
News
Update error on IMF staff
The Bretton Woods Update (March 1999) reported that the 2 social advisors recently appointed to the IMF were being funded by the Department for International Development (DFID).
Knowledge
News
Bank Poverty Assessments - “irrelevant”?
The Bank’s Poverty Assessments contain “relatively little of policy relevance” because of their narrow focus on income-based poverty lines, according to a report by the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague.
IFI governance
News
Bank seeks balanced development strategies
Bank President James Wolfensohn has announced a new initiative which aims to balance economic with non-economic analysis and enable real participation and transparency in drawing up country strategies.
IFI governance
News
World Bank outlines plans for more active European engagement
The Bank’s new Vice President for Europe, Jean-Francois Rischard aims to increase the Bank’s engagement with European NGOs and academics.
Conditionality
News
Selectivity: conditionality by any other name
Government officials met the World Bank in March to discuss new criteria for allocating its IDA (soft loan) resources among countries.
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”.
News
Bretton Woods Update
The Bretton Woods Project is just establishing a website at www.brettonwoodsproject.org.
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.
Knowledge
News
Democracy and civil society rise up Bank’s agenda
At the end of February the World Bank and the Government of Korea hosted a conference entitled Democracy, Market Economy and Development.
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.
Knowledge
News
Bank/Fund growth model questioned
Both ENDS and the Bretton Woods Project co-organised a roundtable meeting in early March to discuss the World Bank and IMF’s core economic models.
Featured briefings
12 December 2024
The Bretton Woods Observer: Winter 2024
12 December 2024
Missing in action: accountability is noticeably absent from the World Bank Group’s new Corporate Scorecard
The Corporate Scorecard’s accountability gap is symptomatic of a broader failure on the part of the WBG to fully internalise, integrate and learn from the work of its accountability mechanisms.
16 October 2024