While India is pushing for the World Bank’s Global Infrastructure Facility, the US voted against IFC support for a Saudi Arabian corporation linked to coal power and an Inspection Panel case was registered for a Nepal power transmission project. Concerns were also raised on infrastructure projects in India, Nepal and Burma.
The World Bank-funded conditional cash transfer programme in the Philippines fails to include people with disabilities, meaning they are missing out on vital support.
Indigenous peoples have been evicted from their forests by a conservation project in Kenya funded by the World Bank. The Bank is currently drafting a new forests action plan.
An international statement, signed by 70 organisations, in response to the publication in mid January of a CAO audit and the IFC response and action plan related to IFC investment in Corporación Dinant, Honduras.
The Bretton Woods Project review of the most important developments at the World Bank and IMF in 2013.
Amidst new complaints on the failure of the investments of the IFC’s financial sector clients to meet the IFC performance standards, including a controversial dam in Honduras, civil society organisations have rejected the IFC’s proposed action plan as unacceptable.
A CAO report into the IFC's controversial role in Honduras palm oil company Dinant, has stalled with Bank management as civil society groups call for Bank president Kim to take action against the human rights abuses.
New concerns have been raised on the World Bank’s involvement in the Simandou mine in Guinea, including on the use of biodiversity offsets, while civil society has repeated unaddressed concerns on the Mongolia Oyu Tolgoi mine. Further concerns have been raised on mines in Dominican Republic, Peru and South Africa.
As the IMF releases its operational guidance and country case studies relating to its April policy paper, the ITUC challenged the focus on labour market flexibility.
An in-depth investigation is currently being taken out by the CAO into human rights violations on IFC financed Tata tea plantations.
