Friends of the Earth has initiated a competition to find the best picture of a project backed by the International Finance Corporation.
Rights
Environment
News
Activists oppose Bank ‘clean development’ credits for Brazilian forest plantation
One of the first pilot projects using the World Bank's climate change carbon trading programmes has come under fire from local groups for endorsing destructive tree plantations.
Rights
News
Campaigners challenge legal basis of Baku-Ceyhan pipeline
Just after key project documents were released in June campaigners in Georgia and the UK filed legal challenges to the Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline, raising awkward questions for the World Bank Group and other potential financiers.
IFI governance
Analysis
G-7, civil society press for IMF, World Bank transparency reforms
The World Bank and the IMF have responded to complaints about their lack of transparency by issuing mountains of documentation and offering innumerable meetings and consultations. But critics are still not satisfied, pointing to the difficulty for people to find and interpret many of the documents produced, and to the opacity of the institutions’ key decision-making bodies.
Environment
Commentary
Chad-Cameroon: oil and poverty reduction don’t mix
Despite World Bank involvement, the Chad Cameroon petroleum project has confirmed that under authoritarian regimes there is a fundamental incompatibility between poverty alleviation objectives and oil exploitation activities.
Environment
News
Asia-Pacific groups walk out of Bank extractives review
Civil society groups walked out of the Asia-Pacific meeting of the World Bank Extractive Industries Review (EIR) at the end of April. Coming after many other complaints about the process this raises major questions about whether the results of the Review - due to be released in December - can be portrayed as the result of a fair multi-stakeholder engagement.
Rights
News
Debate continues over services report
As the window for consultation on the draft of the World Development Report 2004 (WDR), Making Services Work for the Poor, draws to a close, debate continues. In response to civil society criticism of the November outline, the March draft of the Report strikes a more nuanced tone on some of the more contentious issues.
Rights
News
African right to water
Activists, academics and civil society met in Accra 12-14 May for a conference entitled "Corporate Globalisation & the Scramble for Africa's Water: scrutinising the roles of Bretton Woods Institutions & donor community".
Knowledge
News
WB poverty policy review
Since March, the Bank has posted a revision of its policy on poverty reduction. Bankwatchers are concerned by the language of the policy which they say represents a significant step backwards from the World Development Report 2000 on poverty.
Rights
News
IMF guide to civil society
The IMF has asked an independent researcher to produce a guidance note for staff on engaging with civil society.
