Infrastructure

Infrastructure

Background

World Bank's Climate Investment Funds 4 years later

Minutes of meeting on the World Bank-housed Climate Investment Funds and the Green Climate Fund, Washington DC, 19 April 2012

20 April 2012 | Minutes

Infrastructure

Background

Climate change, energy access and sustainable development

Minutes of climate change and energy access meeting, Washington DC, 18 April 2012

20 April 2012 | Minutes

Infrastructure

News

False solutions? The IFC, private equity and climate finance

As the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Bank's private-sector arm, announces new investments in its climate-focused private equity fund, critics argue that investing scarce public climate funds in the financial sector is of unproven effectiveness, will miss the world's poorest regions and has questionable developmental impacts.

5 April 2012

Infrastructure

News

World Bank backs dirty energy despite objections

Continued controversy over a coal power project in Kosovo, partly funded by the World Bank, and a catalogue of complaints over its projects highlight the impact of extractives and the lack of alternatives in the Banks energy lending portfolio.

5 April 2012

Environment

News

Nature on the market?

The Bank will showcase new initiatives on oceans and the valuation of ecosystem services at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, or Rio+20, in Brazil in late June, but is attracting criticism from civil society groups for its approach to 'green growth'.

5 April 2012

Accountability

News

New World Bank infrastructure strategy

A World Bank infrastructure strategy update, developed because of a G20 push for more infrastructure investment, reaffirms the Bank's commitment to large-scale projects and scaled up private finance through public-private partnerships (PPPs, see Update 77), despite questions about bloated costs and development impact.

7 February 2012

Accountability

News

The World Bank and extractives: a rich seam of controversy

As World Bank projects fail to reduce corruption in the mining sector in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), International Financial Corporation (IFC) investments in extractives are provoking complaints and protests around the world.

7 February 2012

Infrastructure

News

Petra Kjell joins the Project

We are delighted to welcome Petra Kjell as the new head of the Project's work programme on climate and the environment, human rights and social impacts, taking over from Ama Marston.

1 February 2012

Infrastructure

Analysis

No fairy tale

As debates continue at the World Bank about its lending for new coal-fired power plants, residents of the Indian district of Singrauli, the country's coal capital, still live with the lasting social and environmental impacts of decades of coal-related projects and ask why the Bank has never returned to fully address what has been left in the wake of its investments in the region.

18 November 2011 | Reports

Infrastructure

News

New reports question World Bank's coal investments

As the November Durban climate talks approach, the World Bank continues to be overshadowed by past and prospective loans for fossil-fuel power plants.

18 November 2011