The notion that public investments should be used to 'leverage' additional investments from private actors is increasingly used in a variety of development finance forums, including aid, development finance, agriculture and, in particular, climate finance. The World Bank has become one of the leading proponents of this concept, though nowhere has it spelled out clearly what it means by 'leverage' or how it should be measured.
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US to IFIs: whistleblowers welcome
A provision recently passed by the US Congress requires the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD, the World Bank's middle-income country arm), the African Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank to make "substantial progress" towards implementing "best practices for the protection of whistleblowers from retaliation" before the US contributes more funding to their capital base.
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IFIs must "engage with the Burmese people"
Civil society groups from Burma have written to the heads of the IMF and World Bank requesting that the IFIs involve grass roots actors in their newly revived activities in Burma and that their operational policies "guarantee maximum transparency, accountability, social inclusiveness and safeguards".
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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.
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Analysis
The IFIs in 2011: year in review
The deepening economic crisis in the eurozone continued to dominate headlines in 2011, with the IMF participating in controversial lending attached to austerity policies and conditionality requiring privatisation of public services, layoffs in the public sector and wage and pension cuts for vulnerable and poor people. The policies being pursued in Europe are strikingly similar to the structural adjustment programmes pushed in developing countries in the 1980s and 90s, which provided some of the
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Appointment of the World Bank president
A letter to all World Bank governors calling for reforms to the selection process for a new World Bank president signed by over 50 civil society groups
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Harvesting controversy
While the Bank prepares to revise its agriculture strategy, its focus on market liberalisation is criticised, its own complaints bodies issue damning reports on agriculture projects in Peru and Papua New Guinea, and critics fault its gender focus.
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IFC's private equity investments cause controversy
The increasing use of private equity (PE) firms as conduits for World Bank lending continues to stoke controversy.
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Green light for revised PforR, but concerns remain
The World Bank board has approved the controversial new Program-for-Results (PforR) lending instrument, with some concessions to criticism.
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The World Bank and extractives: a rich seam of controversy
As World Bank projects fail to reduce corruption in the mining sector in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), International Financial Corporation (IFC) investments in extractives are provoking complaints and protests around the world.
