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Latin America & Caribbean

Finance

Analysis

Against regressive taxes and austerity: IMF and World Bank must pivot tax policies to support a just and green transition

This year, 85 per cent of the world’s population lives under austerity measures, while multinational enterprises and the wealthy have benefited from privileged tax structures and regressivity, allowing inequality to widen.

5 April 2023 | Guest analysis

Environment

News

Resilience and Sustainability Trust’s first loans promote climate PPPs, raising concerns they may create fiscal risks

Initial financing for Costa Rica, Barbados, Rwanda, Bangladesh and Jamaica tied to efforts to ‘green’ PPP frameworks.

5 April 2023

Private Sector

News

World Bank’s financial inclusion agenda blind to growing gendered over-indebtedness

The World Bank’s financial inclusion agenda in time of cost-of-living crisis, austerity and financialisation promotes indebtedness of the poor, especially women.

5 April 2023

Environment

Commentary

Bridgetown Initiative calls for new Global Climate Mitigation Trust financed via Special Drawing Rights

IMF’s lending instruments fail to provide swift and large-scale funding for climate transition. The Bridgeton Initiative proposes a new trust backed by $500 billion in SDRs for climate and development.

8 December 2022 | Guest comment

Gender

Analysis

New IMF gender strategy's potential to catalyse change undermined by austerity and problematic mission creep

IMF’s new gender mainstreaming strategy makes effort to include civil society demands but falls short of transformative vision as austerity remains Fund’s raison-d’état.

8 December 2022

Rights

News

A new SDR allocation: Combatting deepening fragility concerns

The links between high debt burdens, lack of climate finance, austerity and the rise in political instability and fragility, conflict and violence remain largely neglected as IMF shareholders consider calls for a new SDR allocation, as proposed by the Bridgetown Agenda.

8 December 2022

IFI governance

Analysis

V20 communiqué analysis Annual Meetings 2022: Climate vulnerable countries call for debt relief and a revamped IMF

The finance ministers for the Vulnerable Group of Twenty, a bloc of 58 developing country economies representing some 1.5 billion people, issued a communiqué on 16 October.

19 October 2022

IFI governance

Analysis

Spring Meetings 2022 Wrap-Up: Progress on key issues side-tracked by Ukraine invasion and BWIs’ own sense of drift

Spring Meetings conclude with frantic calls for stronger multilateralism, but few advances in key issues such as Covid-19 unequal recovery, debt, inequality and climate crises, while Russia participation prevents G20, G24 and Development Committee from releasing a communique.

26 April 2022
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Other news

IFI governance

Background

Voices of the Global South: Taxation and polycrisis

Notes from Civil Society Policy Forum event on April 14 2023 titled "Voices of the Global South: Taxation and polycrisis"

14 April 2023 | Minutes

IFI governance

Background

Implications of financial deepening for inequality and its impact on gender, poverty, and marginalization

Notes from a Civil Society Policy Forum panel on 14 October 2022 titled "Implications of financial deepening for inequality and its impact on gender, poverty, and marginalization."

14 October 2022 | Minutes

Finance

News

IMF continues to disregard UN Human Rights Commission concerns about its surcharge policy

IMF managing director continues to refuse to answer letter from UN Human Rights Council concerning the negative impact of IMF surcharges as world celebrates 75th anniversary of Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

5 April 2023

Finance

News

A different ‘evolution roadmap’: Havana conference calls for changes in world order hierarchy

As IMF and World Bank tinker at margins, 50 policymakers, diplomats and academics from over 26 countries issue Havana Declaration calling for an assertion of Southern power and the building of a new "planetary bloc".

5 April 2023

IFI governance

Background

Greening whole economies? Unpacking World Bank plans for Paris alignment by July 2023

Notes from a Civil Society Policy Forum event on 14 October titled "Greening whole economies? Unpacking World Bank plans for Paris alignment by July 2023."

14 October 2022 | Minutes

IFI governance

Background

Winds of change: the future of tax reforms in Latin America

Notes from a Civil Society Policy Forum panel on 13 October 2022 titled "Winds of change: the future of tax reforms in Latin America."

13 October 2022 | Minutes

IFI governance

Background

Green and just? Climate in IMF surveillance & lending – evidence from Pakistan, Argentina, South Africa, Indonesia

Notes from a Civil Society Policy Forum on 11 October titled, "Green and just? Climate in IMF surveillance & lending – evidence from Pakistan, Argentina, South Africa, Indonesia."

11 October 2022 | Minutes

Land

News

IFC approves loan to industrial agriculture producer in Brazil despite pleas for protection of sensitive grassland biome

World Bank’s IFC $200 loan for large-scale agricultural production in Brazil disregards serious human rights and environmental concerns, despite calls by 200 civil society organisations globally

21 July 2022
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