Fourteen new countries were accepted to the Scaling up Renewable Energy Program in Low Income Countries (SREP). Programme implementation continues to be slow, with expected co-financing often dropped.
Middle East & North Africa
Social services
News
World Bank: education is a "private good"
A World Bank blog about the benefits of private schooling has been contravened by a UN committee and heavily criticised by civil society
IFI governance
Background
After SCOTUS: Next steps in sovereign debt restructuring
Notes of a meeting on sovereign debt restructuring after SCOTUS at the World Bank-IMF annual meetings 2014
Knowledge
News
Who’s poor? New estimates of PPPs led to halving of World Bank’s poverty numbers
A May World Bank-led statistical operation has used a new method to estimate purchasing power parities, allowing it to more than halve the estimated number of people living on below $1.25 per day.
Conditionality
Analysis
IMF: Ukraine's "tough programme"; Egypt next?
The IMF’s provision of an exceptional access loan to Ukraine was presented as vital economic support, but many commentators fear that this loan is driven as much by political as economic necessity. Despite emphasising increased sensitivity to country circumstances, Fund policy recommendations in Egypt are very similar to its prescriptions for Ukraine.
Conditionality
Background
IMF recommendations to Arab countries in transition: Challenges & prospects
Sponsors: Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND); Bretton Woods Project; Middle East Task Force of…
Environment
Analysis
Clean Technology Fund (CTF)
Updates on the Clean Technology Fund (CTF) from CIFs Monitor 9
Conditionality
Analysis
IMF conditionality and its discontents
A new study shows a significant worldwide pattern of protests targeting the IMF, reflecting the increase in IMF influence through loan programmes with austerity conditions attached and indirect pressure on governments.
IFI governance
News
IMF facilities review exposes image problem
The IMF facilities review reveals a lack of demand for post 2008 financial crisis lending instruments.
Finance
Analysis
The IFIs in 2013: year in review
The Bretton Woods Project review of the most important developments at the World Bank and IMF in 2013.
Finance
Analysis
The IMF’s debt restructuring dilemma
Burgeoning debt levels, and problems in Jordan and Philippines, indicate that debt crises are not behind us. While the IMF considers policy changes, an influential group of scholars has proposed a new Fund facility for handling sovereign debt restructuring.
Social services
News
Palestinian NGOs reject Red Sea-Dead Sea canal
In the wake of the April publication of the World Bank funded feasibility study of the Red Sea – Dead Sea canal, a coalition of 19 Palestinian organisations and three experts have rejected the plan and described the participation process as a “mockery”.
