The World Bank is so keen to promote the Bujagali II hydropower project as the solution to Uganda’s energy problems that it has set up a special website for it. Local and international groups who have been lobbying for a full and fair review of Uganda's energy options point out that Bujagali is unlikely to meet the needs of the 95 per cent of Ugandans who live far from the national grid and have never benefited from modern energy services.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Conditionality
News
Evaluation finds that IMF misleads the public about its role in Africa
A report released by the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) of the IMF criticises the role of the IMF in managing aid inflows to Sub-Saharan Africa, but fails to address more fundamental questions about the Fund’s role in low-income countries.
Conditionality
News
Reading from the script
The decisions by Ghana and Tanzania to use the Policy Support Instrument (PSI) reflect the IMF’s success in convincing countries to accept conditionality without any financing, despite the evidence from Uganda and elsewhere that PSI conditions are numerous and will be enforced.
Accountability
News
Bujagali funding imminent
Funding from the World Bank and the European Investment Bank for the controversial Bujagali dam in Uganda is imminent.
Environment
News
Congo: mining, conflict and complicity
A confidential World Bank memo dated September 2005 finds that three of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s biggest mining contracts were approved with “a complete lack of transparency”.
Conditionality
News
IMF wants tax on mosquito nets in Zambia
The IMF provoked public ire in Zambia by asking the government to remove value added tax exemptions on a range of goods, including mosquito nets used to fight malaria.
Accountability
Analysis
The IFCs lessons of experience & the Chad-Cameroon oil and pipeline project
In September 2006 the IFC published its first issue of a new publication entitled Lessons of Experience. However, the IFC's lessons drawn from the external compliance monitoring group in the Chad-Cameroon project read more like a tool to market the concept of external monitors to IFC clients than lessons meant to design a more effective role for the external monitor in improving implementation of social and environmental commitments.
Accountability
News
German firm debarred over Lesotho fraud
In November, the Bank debarred German engineering firm Lahmeyer International over bribery convictions in the Lesotho Highlands Water project.
Accountability
Commentary
Time to listen to Lesotho! - The World Bank and its new anti-corruption agenda
Comment piece by Hennie Van Vuuren on corruption and bribery in the Bank-supported Lesotho Highlands Water Scheme
Finance
News
Mauritania, Malawi qualify for debt relief
Mauritania qualified for the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative in June, while Malawi completed the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative in August.
Social services
News
Cape Verde becomes IMF’s third PSI country
On 1 August, the IMF board approved Cape Verde's application for the Policy Support Instrument (PSI)
Rights
News
The IFC at fifty: All that glitters is too much gold
As the International Finance Corporation (IFC) marks its golden anniversary, the institution claims to serve "as a catalyst for innovative, market-based solutions for reducing poverty and addressing environmental and social challenges". The reality fails to justify such a glittering perspective. Problem gold mine projects in Ghana, Peru and Kyrgyzstan and serious weaknesses in its recent human rights impact assessment programme undermine the future credibility of an institution that is increasin
