Rights

Commentary

IFIs and labour markets

5 April 2012

The G20 has ensured that the IFIs are receiving increasing resources to deal with the economic crisis. However, the institutions are resisting the drive to find new paths for world development, particularly for ensuring jobs and employment, and instead remain attached to dogmatic liberal principles and recommend the same old-fashioned liberalisation proposals that have driven the world economy to the deepest crisis since the 1930s.

IFI governance

News

New World Bank president: what's on the agenda?

An unprecedented competition for the presidency of the World Bank, with two highly experienced developing country candidates nominated in addition to the US candidate, has raised demands for reform of the Bank's approach to middle-income countries, human rights, environmental issues, and the private sector, among others.

5 April 2012

Conditionality

Analysis

IMF policy recommendations

IMF policy recommendations are often criticised for being too restrictive, procyclical and paying little attention to country-specific circumstances. In the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, the Fund showed some policy rethinking, bringing about expectations of change. However, Rathin Roy and Raquel A. Ramos of the UNDP Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth analyse IMF policy recommendations given to developing countries and conclude that headquarters' receptiveness to new approaches has not been trans

27 March 2012 | At Issue

Infrastructure

News

World Bank backs dirty energy despite objections

Continued controversy over a coal power project in Kosovo, partly funded by the World Bank, and a catalogue of complaints over its projects highlight the impact of extractives and the lack of alternatives in the Banks energy lending portfolio.

5 April 2012

Environment

News

Nature on the market?

The Bank will showcase new initiatives on oceans and the valuation of ecosystem services at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, or Rio+20, in Brazil in late June, but is attracting criticism from civil society groups for its approach to 'green growth'.

5 April 2012

Social services

News

IMF in Europe: doomed to fail?

The IMF has scaled back its percentage stake in the Greek loan package but remains assertive in the eurozone, calling for more austerity raising questions over whether periphery nations will play along.

5 April 2012

Knowledge

News

World Bank views on poverty "econocentric"

As the World Bank released its latest global poverty estimates, critics warn of the data's shortcomings and how it compromises the understanding of the issue.

5 April 2012

Accountability

News

IEG finds World Bank not well adapted to crisis lending

The final report of the World Bank's Independent Evaluation Group's (IEG, the Bank's arms-length evaluation unit) assessment of the Bank's response to the 2008/09 global economic crisis confirms that Bank measures followed pre-crisis patterns and often failed to reach those most affected, leaving the Bank vulnerable to future crises.

5 April 2012

Infrastructure

News

False solutions? The IFC, private equity and climate finance

As the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Bank's private-sector arm, announces new investments in its climate-focused private equity fund, critics argue that investing scarce public climate funds in the financial sector is of unproven effectiveness, will miss the world's poorest regions and has questionable developmental impacts.

5 April 2012

Rights

News

IFIs labour approach “will get us in trouble”

With global unemployment at record high levels, the IFIs’ approach to employment is being criticised for still encouraging countries to lower labour protections.

5 April 2012

IFI governance

News

Building alternatives BRICS by BRICS

With the future of the World Bank up for grabs in the presidency race and the IMF facing a resource crunch, many developing countries are pursuing alternatives to the Washington-based lenders, with Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa even mooting a joint BRICS Bank.

5 April 2012

Finance

News

IMF's approach to financial regulation "behind the curve"

While the IMF's strategic plan for boosting its financial sector surveillance has not been published, the Fund continues to argue that developing countries need more liberal financial systems.

5 April 2012

Land

Background

The World Bank and agriculture

Agriculture re-emerged in the last decade as a focus of World Bank Group lending, with the Bank claiming that "improving agricultural performance is the most powerful tool we have available to reduce global poverty and hunger."

5 April 2012 | Inside the institutions