Over the summer the Independent Evaluation Office of the IMF released draft issues papers for two forthcoming evaluations.
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.
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.
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
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.
The April IMF board approval of its budgets for the 2012 financial year (FY), and indicative budgets for FY2013-14, gave the first public insight into the amount the Fund plans to spend on refurbishing its offices.
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.
The IMF is withholding part of a loan to Pakistan over its failure to raise consumption taxes or decrease spending, but IMF-led reforms fail to address the under-taxation of the country's wealthy elite. The IMF's official approach to tax policy advice, articulated in a March board paper, shows a new appreciation for the distributional effects of taxation, but policy has not translated into practice.
In early March, the IMF board agreed to the use of new ways of measuring whether a country's foreign exchange reserve were adequate.
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.
From South Africa to Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, the Bank and Fund have demonstrated they are not appropriate allies to address the scale of the crisis the world is facing, especially, given their record.
