Concerns raised about IMF conditions pushing women back into poverty and informal work.
Finance
Analysis
The international financial system’s reliance upon credit ratings – usually based on dubious premises – needs urgent rethinking.
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Conditionality
Finance
Analysis
World Bank’s rating obsession will negate debt justice
Finance
Analysis
Early evidence suggests IMF programmes are maintaining long-term fiscal consolidation targets, while World Bank further continues Maximizing Finance for Development narrative amidst Covid-19 crisis.
Finance
Analysis
‘Building back better’ or locking in broken policies?
Conditionality
Analysis
IMF-backed austerity measures starved health sector prior to pandemic, yet Fund continues to prescribe devastating long-term fiscal consolidation.
Conditionality
Analysis
The IMF’s role in the devastating impacts of Covid-19 – the case of Ecuador
Conditionality
News
Uprising and discontent: Global protests erupt against IMF-backed policies
From Latin America to North Africa and the Middle East, governments experience backlash against IMF loan programmes and policy recommendations.
Gender
News
Letter to IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva on women's rights and gender equality
Over 60 civil society organisations call on the IMF to focus on the harmful impacts of its own policy advice on women's rights and gender equality.
Conditionality
Analysis
IMF Ecuador agreement undermines workers’ rights
IMF programme raises questions over unconstitutional attack on workers' rights.
Conditionality
Analysis
Structural adjustment is dead, long live structural adjustment
As Fund publishes its first comprehensive review of conditionality since the financial crisis, questions arise about the Fund's capacity to create economic stability and the rise of structural conditions.
Conditionality
Commentary
Unsustainable? The IMF’s approach to the Sustainable Development Goals
As the IMF publishes new SDG site, meaningful policy realignment remains lacking while business-as-usual continues at IMF.
Conditionality
Commentary
Strikes overturn wage cuts, but IMF blindness risks ruining Tunisia
General Secretary of Tunisia's largest trade union calls for an overhaul of the IMF's approach to bring about socially just expansionary policies, after strikes overturn IMF-backed wage bill
Gender
Analysis
The IMF and Gender Equality: Operationalising Change
Latest IMF guidance on gender issues raises more questions than answers as it opens the door to impact assessments and alternative macro policies.
Other news
Conditionality
News
3 October 2019
Civil unrest in Zimbabwe amid IMF Staff Monitored Programme
Fears of further clampdown on protesters emerge as Zimbabwe implements Fund-backed economic reforms.
Conditionality
News
7 December 2017
New IMF conditionality database launched
Team of UK academics launch new, freely available IMF conditionality database.
Finance
Background
16 April 2019 | Minutes
Taxes, Taxes, Taxes: Shifting the IFI Narrative to Progressive Gender-just Taxation
Notes from the Civil Society Policy Forum session on 12 April on the changing international tax landscape from a feminist perspective and challenging IFIs’ role in shaping it at the World Bank and IMF's 2019 Spring Meetings.
Conditionality
Background
16 April 2019 | Minutes
Austerity and the right to health - the IMF’s role in expanding fiscal space for public spending
Notes from the Civil Society Policy Forum session on 10 April on the incoherence between IMF-backed austerity policies, via loan conditionality and policy advice, and the realization of the right to health.
Conditionality
News
27 September 2017
BWP edited volume on IMF’s policy impacts on gender equality
The Bretton Woods Project publishes edited volume on the impacts of IMF macroeconomic policies on women's rights and gender equality.
Conditionality
News
3 July 2017
Suriname walks away from IMF conditionalities
The government of Suriname has cancelled its loan programme with the IMF, claiming its conditionalities were too much to bear for its citizens.
Conditionality
Background
20 April 2017 | Minutes
The IMF and World Bank policies and the Arab world’s transition economies
Notes from the Civil Society Policy Forum Session at the 2017 World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings on IMF and World Bank programmes in the MENA Region.
Conditionality
News
7 April 2017
New IMF Mongolia deal: extracting sovereignty
IMF reaches new loan agreement with Mongolia, amidst civil society concerns about impacts on Mongolian people.
