Social services

Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva clasps hands with World Bank President Ajay Banga at the Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable during the 2024 Annual Meetings of the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC, on 23 October 2024. Credit: IMF Photo/Allison Shelley

IFI governance

Analysis

Annual Meetings 2024 Wrap-up - Don’t look back: BWIs plough down path of reforms lacking evidence and willingness to engage with broader UN-led reform processes

The 2024 World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings, taking place in the context of the institutions’ 80th anniversary, offered little substantive reform despite multiple ongoing organisational processes and reviews.

30 October 2024

Finance

News

Pakistan’s debt crisis fuelled by more IMF loans

Pakistan on track to receive its 24th loan from the IMF after the lender disbursed the last tranche of the country’s latest $3 billion programme.

3 July 2024

Environment

News

World Bank's $1 billion loan to South Africa risks undermining just transition by doubling down on 'de-risking' private capital

Despite the Just Energy Transition Partnership's failure to attract private investments in South Africa, the World Bank is doubling down on a private sector led approach to the green transition through $1 billion loan contingent on the separation of Eskom’s activities.

3 July 2024
Cash transfer in the town of Betafo. Credit: Mohammed Al-Arief / The World Bank

Social services

Analysis

Beyond the World Bank: The fight for universal social protection in the Global South

The World Bank Group promotes a model of social protection via poverty-targeted programmes that are error-strewn and can cause social unease, and set back progress towards universal social protection.

9 April 2024 | At Issue
Apollo Hospital, Dhaka, 2014

Accountability

News

Another day, another IFC scandal

A Telegraph exposé unveils how a private hospital group in India which received £120 million in IFC investment since 2005 was running an illegal organ trading scheme, adding to a growing number of IFC-funded scandals.

9 April 2024

Accountability

Analysis

A proposal for Ajay: No evolution without remedy

While World Bank President declares the benefits of a “bigger and better” Bank, the scandal of alleged child sexual abuse and cover up relating to IFC investments in Bridge Academies demonstrates the urgent need for the Bank to establish a robust remedy framework.

13 December 2023

Private Sector

News

World Bank embarks on pilot phase of Business Ready Project, disregarding civil society concerns

B-READY pilot 1 covering 51 countries is released, ignoring CSO concerns about the project’s flawed “private-sector first” agenda.

9 April 2024

Social services

News

The World Bank's water privatisation agenda neglects fundamental human rights

World Bank's water privatisation agenda directly clashes with its poverty alleviation goals, disregarding water as a basic human right.

9 April 2024
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva participates in the Joint Climate Seminar during the 2023 Annual Meetings of the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund in Marrakech, Morocco on October 11, 2023. Credit: IMF Photo/Kim Haughton

Conditionality

Analysis

World Bank and IMF promoting private finance and fiscal consolidation despite mounting evidence of harmful impacts

Civil society research documents clear harms from privatisation and fiscal consolidation on public services and human rights, as Bank and Fund push for their deepening.

13 December 2023
Tunisians demonstrate for peace, freedom of speech and for a secular state ahead of elections for a Constituent Assembly on 23 October 2011, following the Tunisian Revolution. Credit: European Parliament

Finance

Analysis

The IMF and World Bank talk good governance, but walk with state- capturers

From South Africa to Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, the Bank and Fund have demonstrated they are not appropriate allies to address the scale of the crisis the world is facing, especially, given their record.

4 October 2023 | At Issue