Faced with deafening silence from Bank and Fund leadership on climate issues at the Spring Meetings, climate vulnerable countries demand urgent changes to global financial architecture.
Environment
IFI governance
Analysis
Wrap-up Springs 2025: BWIs stay silent on climate crisis as tariff fallout looms
Environment
Analysis
Rich countries agree to provide a paltry $300 billion in public finance by 2035 including funds channelled through MDBs, as Small Island States and Least Developed Countries stage walkout.
Environment
Analysis
MDBs take centre stage at COP29 as CSOs call new climate finance target a ‘betrayal’
IFI governance
Analysis
The 2024 World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings, taking place in the context of the institutions’ 80th anniversary, offered little substantive reform despite multiple ongoing organisational processes and reviews.
IFI governance
Analysis
Wrap-up Annuals 2024: BWIs' reforms lack evidence and engagement with UN processes
Environment
News
MIGA’s new guarantee for voluntary carbon markets risks shielding big polluters
CSOs warn MIGA's proposal at COP29 to de-risk carbon markets for private investors could shield polluters from accountability, leaving local communities to bear the costs.
Environment
News
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.
Environment
News
World Bank's $1 billion loan to South Africa risks undermining just transition by doubling down on 'de-risking' private capital
Despite the Just Energy Transition Partnership's failure to attract private investments in South Africa, the World Bank is doubling down on a private sector led approach to the green transition through $1 billion loan contingent on the separation of Eskom’s activities.
Environment
Background
The World Bank and climate finance: Success story or a new era of green ‘structural adjustment’?
This Inside the Institutions analyses the World Bank's climate finance, examining its impact on low- and middle-income countries' climate objectives.
Infrastructure
News
Indonesia JETP's promotion of renewable energy privatisation opposed by unions and civil society
Indonesia’s Just Energy Transition Partnership bears the clear handprint of the World Bank’s private-sector led approach to power sectors in the Global South, creating opposition from unions and civil society.
Environment
News
Selection of World Bank to host new Loss and Damage Fund draws ire of developing countries and civil society advocates
Developing countries insist on lengthy list of conditions as Bank is named host of new Loss and Damage Fund on interim basis.
Environment
News
Morocco and IMF Resilience and Sustainability Trust: Balancing debt, privatisation and neocolonial dynamics
Morocco's $1.32 billion Resilience and Sustainability Trust loan comes with 'green conditions' which may facilitate neocolonial resource-grabbing and a European-led rush for ‘green’ hydrogen.
Other news
Accountability
News
IFC ends investment in waste-to-energy incineration projects in Gujarat, India, following civil society campaign
While IFC’s withdrawal is welcome, civil society urges the Bank to stop funding WTE projects and move towards zero-waste solutions instead.
Rights
News
Communities demand justice as IFC fails to address coal financing fallout
IFC faces backlash for failing to address social and environmental harms from its financing of coal plants in the Philippines, despite proven health and environmental violations.
Accountability
News
CAO report adds to concerns about IFC's compliance with its own GHG emissions obligations
CAO report substantiates civil society findings about IFC’s failure to comply with its own requirements for GHG emissions measurement, alternatives analysis, mitigation and disclosure.
Environment
News
Trump election may add pressure to reverse World Bank’s prohibition on support for nuclear power
Donald Trump’s election may result in a revision of World Bank’s long-standing prohibition of support to nuclear power.
Environment
News
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.
Environment
News
Civil society raises concerns about Resilience and Sustainability Trust’s green conditionality as Fund conducts interim review
CSOs and experts question the suitability of ‘green' policy conditions attached to RST loans.
Environment
News
World Bank makes developing countries wait on Loss and Damage Fund demands
Bank may not respond to asks until June, at the earliest, raising questions about timeline for fund’s operationalisation.
Environment
News
IFC trade finance continues to invest in fossil fuels, with no board oversight
New research by Urgewald finds that the World Bank Group invested an estimated $3.7 billion in oil and gas developments in 2022 via trade financing.