Bolivia is the first country to have produced an Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), which has qualified it for the enhanced HIPC Initiative debt relief.
Finance
Rights
News
Jakarta activists call for local initiatives
NGO activists in Jakarta wrote an open letter to World Bank President James Wolfensohn in February, asking him to meet directly with the people to hear their own solutions to reverse Indonesia’s economic decline based on small-scale, local initiatives.
Finance
News
Capital punishment
A new report from UK NGO CAFOD criticises the IMF response to the financial crisis as “inadequate and at times harmful to the interests of the poor” and urges “deep reforms”.
Conditionality
News
IMF takes on poverty mandate
Important changes to the IMF’s remit in the poorest countries were announced at the IMF-WB Annual Meetings in September.
Finance
News
Jubilee South summit
Jubilee 2000 representatives held a South-South Summit in South Africa in late November.
Conditionality
News
Southern organisations demand end to adjustment
Organizations and activists in more than 20 Southern countries have launched a campaign against the destructive lending policies of the World Bank.
Conditionality
News
UK ED quizzed on UK role in Bank and Fund
In October UK Executive Director Stephen Pickford was called before the Treasury and International Development Select Committees for questioning by MPs.
Finance
News
Ecological debt outweighs financial debt
The view that poor countries owe the rich millions of dollars in loan repayments is challenged by a Christian Aid report.
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.
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.
Featured briefings
12 December 2024
The Bretton Woods Observer: Winter 2024
12 December 2024
Missing in action: accountability is noticeably absent from the World Bank Group’s new Corporate Scorecard
The Corporate Scorecard’s accountability gap is symptomatic of a broader failure on the part of the WBG to fully internalise, integrate and learn from the work of its accountability mechanisms.
16 October 2024