Bretton Woods Project Annual Report 2022

Despite civil society collective hopes, 2022 was another challenging year during which the injustices and suffering brought about by the uneven Covid-19 pandemic recovery were exacerbated by the spillover effects of the war in Ukraine and wide-spread cost of living crisis. Cautiously optimistic projections of a robust recovery gave way to well-grounded fears that the Sustainable Development Goals will not be met, as global levels of extreme poverty, inequality and food insecurity increased significantly.

Within this context, the World Bank and IMF continued to exert their influence through their lending, normative roles, and agenda-setting power. Substantial grassroots opposition grew to a world order that continues to disadvantage billions and divert us from an ecologically and gender-just macroeconomic trajectory.

In 2022, BWP established two new work streams on financialisation and human rights and governance reform at the BWIs, thus strengthening its ability to challenge IMF and World Bank narratives, and support responses to the negative impacts of their policies and programmes, especially in the context of the inequitable recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, and the debt, climate and inequality crises. The Project continued its focus on climate change, gender and human rights, coordinating civil society engagement and advocating for a people-centred recovery.