Despite the public pressure it faced, the World Bank tried to use the Prague annual meetings to extend its remit to new issue areas.
New book addresses how to adjust the concept of public goods to today’s economic and political realities-includes discussion of governance of the IMF.
Although it has sought to adapt, the Fund still has particular difficulties in dealing effectively with low income countries. The introduction of ESAF was an important attempt at adaptation but its programmes are still too short term, the scale of support is often too small, and the policy conditions laid down are too blinkered.
“Some anxieties are well-founded,” agrees a major new World Bank report that outlines evidence and an agenda for action on globalisation*.
A major policy report has been produced with proposals for the Financing for Development summit to be held next March 2002 in Monterrey, Mexico.
Financial liberalisation has created volatility in financial markets, threatening the orderly running of national economies.
We face major contradictions: between “markets” and democracy, and between liberal-economic globalization and political-cultural universalism.
The British government has issued more detailed plans for a bond market mechanism to increase the amount of money spent on development assistance.
An online debate on Globalization and Poverty in May generated much interesting material.
The first full-length study of relations between social movements and the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO has just been published.
In April the World Bank launched a new briefing Assessing Globalization, examining the implications of international trade for poverty, inequality and the environment.
Facility established in 1987 to provide assistance on concessional terms to low-income member countries facing protracted balance of payments problems. Has been replaced in 2000 by the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF).
New briefing by ActionAid USA and the Bretton Woods Project highlights research showing that IMF policy advice has undermined a just energy transition since the Paris Agreement was signed.
