In July, rising transport and fuel prices in Ecuador led to strikes and public protests, and an up-rising by thousands of indigenous people who are also concerned about privatisation plans.
Finance
Conditionality
News
PNG Government avoids conditionality
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
News
Strikers in Colombia in protest at IMF and debt
In late August Colombian labour unions began an indefinite national strike in protest at the government’s political, social, and economic agenda and calling on the government to declare a moratorium on the payment of its internal and external debt.
Finance
News
Africans to challenge Washington Consensus
African NGOs met in Nairobi in August to discuss and formulate an Africa Consensus on economic and social development to challenge the Washington Consensus.
Accountability
News
Politics before good policies in Zimbabwe
The IMF has agreed to lend US$7.32 bn to the Zimbabwean government despite continued concerns about corruption in the land reform process; the cost of supporting Zimbabwean troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC); a planned privatisation of the Hwange power plant; and the reintroduction of price controls.
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.
Finance
News
ESAF reforms to focus on poverty eradication
Clare Short, UK Secretary of State for International Development, has called in parliament for the reform of the IMF’s ESAF loans to make them pro-poor.
Finance
News
G7 agree crisis mechanisms
G7 finance ministers have agreed a framework to include the private sector in future crisis bailouts.
Accountability
News
Curbing corruption
IMF policies have exacerbated corruption according to a Christian Aid briefing on new approaches to debt relief.
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).
Featured briefings
19 July 2023
The Bretton Woods Observer: Summer 2023
3 July 2023
Civil Society calls for rethink of World Bank’s ‘evolution roadmap’ as part of wider reforms to highly unequal global financial architecture
Joint civil society briefing paper highlights concerns with the World Bank’s Evolution Roadmap, and provides a series of recommendations for a Roadmap that prioritises people, participation and the planet over profit and economic growth.
6 April 2023