As the World Bank moves toward finalising its ‘Evolution Roadmap’, and IMF shareholders struggle to agree on an outcome to the 16th Review of Quotas, the stakes in Morocco are high.
WB/IMF roles
Land
News
Honduras threatens ICSID withdrawal over $11 billion ‘neo-colonial’ special economic zone claim
Finance
Analysis
The sovereign debt crises threatening states in the Global South are less about fiscal mismanagement and more about monetary power in the global currency hierarchy.
Finance
Analysis
Monetary power and sovereign debt crises: The renewed case for a debt workout mechanism
Finance
Analysis
As geopolitical tensions rise amidst worsening global economic conditions, civil society demands the democratisation of a world economic order away from the established Global North and elite capitalist hegemony.
Finance
Analysis
A new Bretton Woods for whom?
Finance
News
Debt overhang risks another lost decade and could derail progress on poverty reduction and SDGs
Over 60 per cent of low-income countries and more than 25 percent of emerging market economies are in or at risk of debt distress, and are in danger of being unable to fulfil their fiscal obligations.
IFI governance
Analysis
G20 press briefing analysis Annual Meetings 2022: Challenges and differences in view, as escalating geopolitical conflicts worsen the economic situation
The Indonesian Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani Indrawati acknowledged the G20 faced "many challenges" and "differences in view", with "escalating geopolitical conflicts worsening the economic situation.”
IFI governance
Analysis
G24 communiqué analysis – Spring Meetings 2022
G24 finance ministers called for urgent global action to mitigate the effects of rising debt levels in emerging economies, and rising global food, energy and commodity prices.
IFI governance
Background
What are the World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings?
This Inside the Institutions looks at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund Annual Meetings, one of two official yearly events bringing together BWI governors, officials, civil society, academics and journalists to discuss major economic developments and global governance.
Finance
Background
What is World Bank Development Policy Financing?
This Inside the Institutions provides an overview of one of the World Bank’s most controversial types of lending, Development Policy Financing, and outlines some key critiques of the instrument.
IFI governance
Analysis
Annual Meetings 2020 Preamble: IMF and World Bank frontload austerity and privatisation in Covid-19 recovery, while the world calls for more inclusive multilateralism
As the inability of Bank and Fund to adapt their policies in response to the Covid-19 pandemic becomes more evident, hope turns to the UN system and a radical restructure of the global international financial architecture.
Rights
Analysis
Fears of lawsuits at World Bank’s tribunal constrain efforts to fight pandemic
Covid-19 pandemic highlights the urgent need for ICSID and wider ISDS reforms as cases threaten to undermine state efforts to protect public health.
Other news
Land
News
Corporations are expanding control over Ukraine’s land with help from the IMF and the World Bank
New report from the Oakland Institute exposes the stealth take-over of Ukrainian agricultural land known as the “breadbasket of Europe”.
Finance
News
Failure to lend to Venezuela and Iran once again raises questions around IMF’s political neutrality
IMF fails to respond to loan requests from Iran and Venezula as they struggle to respond to increasing Covid-19 cases and deaths.
Conditionality
Background
IMF and World Bank’s Influence on Economic Policy Making in Developing Countries
Notes from a meeting at the IMF/World Bank CSO Forum at the 2016 Spring meetings, evaluating how well the World Bank and IMF have done on respecting the country ownership principle ten years after its international acceptance.
IFI governance
News
2012 World Bank-IMF spring meetings schedule
Tentative schedule of the World Bank-IMF spring meetings in Washington DC, from 18 to 21 April, 2012.
Land
Background
Notes of meeting between Stewart James, Alternate UK Executive Director to the World Bank, and NGOs
Civil society organisations met UK Executive Director to the World Bank and staff from the Department for International Development to discuss agriculture, land grabs, food security, the safeguards review process, the selection of the next World Bank president, the doing business indicators, and the debt sustainability framework.
Private Sector
News
ICSID offers "impunity" for corporations
In October 2011 international coalition of civil society groups Seattle to Brussels Network held an international week of action against bilateral investment treaties.
Accountability
IMF's "trusted advisor" role to be scrutinised
The IMF's Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) has released an issues paper describing how it will assess whether the IMF has strengthened its 'trusted advisor' role since 2005.
Conditionality
News
IFIs macroeconomic policy "anti-growth"
"Why have the policy tutors performed so miserably and the pupils so brilliantly?", wondered Professor John Weeks of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in an October article for Social Europe Journal.