Bretton Woods Observer
Autumn 2024
New World Bank Corporate Scorecard: overlooking client priorities and ignoring development impact
The World Bank’s new Corporate Scorecard misses the forest for the trees as it lacks an indicator to measure the Bank’s contribution to economic transformation, a cornerstone of its development mandate.
The lost call for international financial architecture reform in the G20
At the 80th anniversary of the World Bank and IMF, global civil society must maintain pressure on the Brazilian and…
Sustainable development requires sustainable finance: why local currency financing is part of the solution
Multilateral development banks can reduce their dependence on hard currency lending and make local currency financing a central element of…
IFC standards review must respond to UN’s call for rights-based transition mineral value chains
Amid escalating transition minerals mining, the expected 2025 review of IFC’s Performance Standards must result in a new approach.
World Bank fails to incorporate key elements of new Gender Strategy in IDA21 policy package and Corporate Scorecard
Despite Bank’s new Gender Strategy’s positive offerings on human rights and the value of public services to women and girls, IDA21 replenishment and new Corporate Scorecard see women only as economic opportunity for the private finance push.
Kenya’s growing youth movement for fiscal justice rejects IMF-mandated austerity
Youth-led led protests lead to withdrawal of controversial finance bill by President William Ruto.
World Bank’s lack of meaningful consultation leaves Chiquitano Indigenous Peoples in Bolivia with no recourse
World Bank fails in its commitment to accountability by disregarding communities’ participation all the way through project design, implementation and resulting remedy plans.
Project 2025 takes on the World Bank and IMF – harbinger of an uncertain new era of geopolitics?
US conservative blueprint for second Trump term calls for US to withdraw from World Bank and IMF, amid continued geopolitical tensions and unresolved debt crisis in Global South.
Jamaica’s World Bank-brokered catastrophe bond fails to pay despite devastation of Hurricane Beryl
Bond’s ‘parametric criteria’ were not triggered by powerful storm, despite the entire island being declared a disaster zone.
BWP’s new briefing finds year one of World Bank’s Paris Agreement alignment in the energy sector deepened ‘green conditionalities’
New BWP briefing on the World Bank’s Paris Agreement alignment in the energy sector finds that, in its first year, the focus was on deepening ‘green conditionality’ and structuring a private sector-led energy transition.
High stakes for December’s IDA21 pledging meeting
The replenishment process for IDA21 concludes in early December, amid hopes of a record replenishment and concerns over the global debt crisis.
CSOs call for mandatory and meaningful consultation at the IMF
Civil society organisations call for consultation on the design of policies that significantly impact states and citizens.
IMF surcharges review: tinkering at the margins as crises deepen?
IMF’s surcharges review is resorting to incremental changes by reviewing the level and time base of penalty charges, instead of achieving meaningful reform
