With the new IMF head and a Bank’s managing director under judicial investigation, questions continue to be asked about IFI governance, while implementation of existing reforms remains slow.
The Bank's energy projects in Kosovo and India are being lambasted by critics for threatening livelihoods and the environment.
The sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone, where Greece now needs a second round of loans, threatens major economies like Spain and Italy, but IMF-backed lending packages that demand deep austerity with insufficient attention to lenders' responsibilities anger the public.
As agricultural market continue to experience increasing volatility, and record food prices intensify global hunger and poverty, the World Bank's approach to the crisis, which emphasises the use of commodities markets and corporate agriculture, is found wanting by groups demanding food sovereignty and food security.
Since the financial crisis, the IMF's rhetoric has tried to be nuanced about austerity policies and the need to stimulate growth, but critics says its actions risk pushing the world back into recession and hurting workers.
A critical analysis of the World Bank's new strategy for Africa
As revolutionary movements sweep the Arab world, the World Bank and the IMF have taken a lead in international economic engagement in the Middle East and North Africa region. But critics have warned of the dangers of locking transitional governments into long-term loans with economic conditionalities that may perpetuate the flawed development model that contributed to the crisis in the first place.
In May, three IMF staffers published a working paper with National Bureau of Economic Research,, A Fistful of Dollars: Lobbying and the Financial Crisis, pointing out the role of lobbying by financial firms for lax regulation which directly led to the 2008 subprime crisis.
Major developing countries have rebuffed the IMF's proposed framework on capital controls, or 'code of conduct' as it has been renamed. The board paper discussed in March drew fire from Brazil and India for being too prescriptive and suggesting that controls should only be used temporarily and as a last resort, but the policy will go ahead despite the acrimony.
International donors including USAID and UK DFID have halted aid to Afghanistan following the IMF's suspension of funds in February.
The IMF programme in Portugal highlights the heavy conditionality attached to loans. Meanwhile, a big, and very public, fight is brewing over debt in Greece, where the IMF denies any problems.
In early March, the IMF board agreed to the use of new ways of measuring whether a country's foreign exchange reserve were adequate.
