Relations between the Bank and the government of Papua New Guinea were strained in July by the government’s decision to issue bonds to raise money from the private sector.
Conditionality
Environment
Analysis
World Bank and IMF: Dilemmas and Opportunities
Are the World Bank and IMF now taking environmental and social issues seriously?
Conditionality
News
Forest conditionality explored
A new paper from the World Resources Institute examines the World Bank’s use of adjustment lending to promote policy reform for favourable environmental outcomes.
Conditionality
News
Initiative changes
The G7 have agreed changes to the Heavily Indebted Poor Country Debt Initiative which will impose more conditionality in return for earlier relief from interest payments.
Accountability
News
Curbing corruption
IMF policies have exacerbated corruption according to a Christian Aid briefing on new approaches to debt relief.
Conditionality
Analysis
The “Perestroika Of Aid”? New Perspectives On Conditionality
This report considers the factors which have led to a proliferation of conditionality and the growing acceptance that it is not an effective tool for persuading governments to make reforms. It proposes that an alternative is to encourage “ownership” and to base lending agreements on “poverty focused” programmes developed at the national level (1999).
Conditionality
News
Selectivity: conditionality by any other name
Government officials met the World Bank in March to discuss new criteria for allocating its IDA (soft loan) resources among countries.
Conditionality
News
Brazilians protest spending cuts
Brazilian NGOs, trade unions, students and opposition parties protested outside the World Bank’s office in Brasilia against the government’s agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Bank’s decision to suspend loans to two state governments.
Finance
Analysis
Assessing Assessing Aid
A discussion and critique of the main points in a prominent World Bank report on aid policy and conditionality - “Assessing Aid, What Works, What Doesn’t and Why”. The Bank’s report is very frank about the many failures of aid financing, but its proposals of targeting finance to good performing countries are controversial (1999).
Conditionality
News
WB/IMF collaboration plans
In response to the external ESAF Review, the World Bank is to collaborate with the IMF in pilot projects in Nicaragua, Vietnam, Tajikistan, Ethiopia, Cameroon and Zimbabwe over the next 12-18 months.
