World Bank

The US Supreme Court Judgment : A Challenge to World Bank’s unfettered immunity

31 March 2019 - by Sushovan Dhar

The verdict is finally out. On 27 February, in a historic 7-1 decision, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that international organizations like the World Bank Group are not above immunity and can be sued in US courts. This was in response to a case (Budha Ismail Jam, et al., (...)
Brazil: 55 years after the overthrow of democratically elected president Joao Goulart, the new far-right President, Jair Bolsonaro has announced a celebration of the 1964 military coup

26 March 2019 - by Eric Toussaint

Brazil: 55 years after the army staged a coup on 31 March 1964 and overthrew President Joao Goulart, the new far-right President, Jair Bolsonaro has announced a celebration of this sad event. There can be no doubt about the active support provided by the US government, the World Bank and the (...)
Why the Marshall Plan ?

25 March 2019 - by Eric Toussaint

In 2019, the World Bank (WB) and the IMF will be 75 years old. These two international financial institutions (IFI), founded in 1944, are dominated by the USA and a few allied major powers who work to generalize policies that run counter the interests of the world’s populations. The WB and (...)
SUNFED versus World Bank

18 March 2019 - by Eric Toussaint

In 2019, the World Bank (WB) and the IMF will be 75 years old. These two international financial institutions (IFI), founded in 1944, are dominated by the USA and a few allied major powers who work to generalize policies that run counter the interests of the world’s populations. The WB and (...)
Early conflicts between the UN and the World Bank/IMF tandem

12 March 2019 - by Eric Toussaint

In 2019, the World Bank (WB) and the IMF will be 75 years old. These two international financial institutions (IFI), founded in 1944, are dominated by the USA and a few allied major powers who work to generalize policies that run counter the interests of the world’s populations. The WB and (...)
The WB assists those in power in a witch-hunting context

5 March 2019 - by Eric Toussaint

In 2019, the World Bank (WB) and the IMF will be 75 years old. These two international financial institutions (IFI), founded in 1944, are dominated by the USA and a few allied major powers who work to generalize policies that run counter the interests of the world’s populations. The WB and the (...)
Budgeting for black-out in South Africa

27 February 2019 - by Patrick Bond

Upon taking power in a palace coup a year ago, Cyril Ramaphosa’s African National Congress (ANC) government was supposedly going to sweep out the prolific corruption associated with the 2009-18 Jacob Zuma ANC regime. But although excruciatingly-slow progress is being made in evicting the most (...)
Concerning the founding of the Bretton Woods’ Institutions

24 February 2019 - by Eric Toussaint

Series : Bretton Woods, the World Bank and the IMF: 70th anniversary
The Highest Bidder Takes It All: The World Bank’s Scheme to Privatize the Commons

21 February 2019 - by Oakland Institute

The Highest Bidder Takes It All: The World Bank’s Scheme to Privatize the Commons details how the Bank’s prescribes reforms, via a new land indicator in the Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA) project, promotes large-scale land acquisitions and the expansion of agribusinesses in the (...)
The resignation of the World Bank president should encourage countries to terminate all agreement with the Bretton Woods institutions

21 January 2019 - by CADTM International

On Monday, 7 January 2019, Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank (WB) has announced his resignation. Kristalina Georgieva, the current Chief Executive Officer of the World Bank will assume the role of interim President effective February 1 till the President of the United States, Donald (...)
Universalism … really?

15 January 2019 - by Francine Mestrum

With all the paradigmatic changes the World Bank has been promoting in the field of social policies, one element never changed in the past thirty years. Social policies were meant for the poor, governments had to find the best ways to target those who really needed their help. The reasoning (...)
Jim Yong Kim’s mixed messages to the World Bank, and the world

15 January 2019 - by Patrick Bond

Johannesburg – World Bank president Jim Kim is an ex-leftist who claims that in the mid-1990s he wanted to shut down the Bank. At the time, it was an entirely valid, realistic goal of the 50 Years is Enough! Campaign and especially the World Bank Bonds Boycott. Kim’s co-edited Dying for Growth (...)
A review of the book “The World Bank: A Critical Primer”

3 January 2019 - by Thomas Masterson

In the last ten years, opposition to corporate globalization has grown from large demonstrations against the World Trade Organization, G8 meetings and IMF/World Bank Conferences to mass convergences intended to envision and bring about a different world at the World Social Forum and its various (...)
Big Shift Global coalition reacts to the World Bank Group’s post-2020 climate goals announcement

5 December 2018 - by Big Shift Global coalition

On Monday, the World Bank Group released a new set of climate targets for 2021-2025, through which it aims to provide and mobilize $200 billion in support of countries’ climate action over this period. According to the Bank’s press release, it will provide $133 billion in direct finance, and (...)
World Bank – IMF Guilty of Promoting Land Grabs, Increasing Inequality

8 October 2018 - by La Via Campesina

“Annual meeting in Bali this week is just a sham to cover up their criminal negligence of people’s interests,” say peasants. 07 OCTOBER, BALI: At a meeting of La Via Campesina facilitated by Serikat Petani Indonesia (SPI) in Bali, peasant organisations from Asia, Africa, Americas and Europe have (...)
A Brief History of the Relations between the World Bank, the IMF, the US Government and Nicaragua

14 August 2018 - by Eric Toussaint

Central America is considered by the US government as part of its own exclusive sphere of influence. The policies adopted by the World Bank in terms of granting loans to the countries of the region are directly influenced by the political choices of the US government. The case of Nicaragua and (...)
Armenia’s unfinished revolution

25 May 2018 - by Armen Abagyan

Bells of triumph are ringing in the streets of Yerevan following the deposition of now-former Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan. Ding-dong, the wicked witch is dead. The spectre of totalitarian rule and unbridled corruption enervating the already impoverished Armenian people is no more. Such is the (...)
2018 IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings: the Bank has more money, but promises little change

3 May 2018 - by Bodo Ellmers, Gino Brunswijck, Maria Romero

The Spring Meetings of the IMF and World Bank took place amid warnings of a ‘borrowed boom’ as an uptick in global growth was matched by global debt levels reaching record highs. The World Bank Group shareholders stumped up for an increase in the Bank’s capital base, but without challenging the (...)
Pro-poor or anti-poor? The World Bank and IMF’s approach to social protection

13 April 2018 - by Stephen Kidd

In recent years, the World Bank and IMF have played an influential role in shaping national social protection policies. Social protection comprises a significant share of World Bank loans, reaching almost 10 per cent of lending to low-income countries in 2017, while around 10 per cent of IMF (...)
The World Development Report produced by the World Bank almost completely ignores workers’ rights

12 April 2018 - by Peter Bakvis

The World Bank decided last year to devote the 2019 edition of its flagship annual policy review publication, the World Development Report, to the theme of the future of work. Preparation of the WDR 2019 encountered some delay after the ouster in late January of the report’s first director, the (...)
As World Bank signals end of extraction finance, CSOs call for end to its other fossil fuel funding

10 April 2018 - by Bretton Woods Project

World Bank Group (WBG) President Jim Yong Kim announced at December’s One Planet Summit in Paris that the Bank will cease project lending for ‘upstream’ oil and gas projects after 2019. SUMMARY WBG announced it will end finance for ‘upstream’ oil and gas projects after 2019 Pledge includes (...)
After 15 years, World Bank’s Doing Business Report still missing the mark

13 March 2018 - by Bretton Woods Project

In October, the World Bank published its 15th Doing Business Report (DBR), Reforming to Create Jobs, noting that 119 economies had carried out 264 business reforms in the past year to “create jobs, attract investment and become more competitive”. SUMMARY Despite claims, DBR’s deregulation (...)
Tunisia: protesting austerity, demanding sovereignty

26 February 2018 - by Hamza Hamouchene

The recent protests show that Tunisia is still a cauldron of popular resistance against neoliberal and neo-colonial attacks on the country’s sovereignty. Around 800 people were arrested, dozens were injured and at least one person was killed in a violent police crackdown on the protests that (...)
The Doing Business Report: a longstanding controversy

5 February 2018 - by Gino Brunswijck

Recent criticism of Chile’s ranking in the Doing Business Report (DBR) has once again put the report in the spotlight, with renewed calls for scrapping the highly controversial annual World Bank publication. Over the years Eurodad has consistently demanded an end to the DBR because of its lack (...)
New Evidence of Africa’s Systematic Looting, From an Increasingly Schizophrenic World Bank

5 February 2018 - by Patrick Bond

A brand new World Bank report, The Changing Wealth of Nations 2018, offers evidence of how much poorer Africa is becoming thanks to rampant minerals, oil and gas extraction. Yet Bank policies and practices remain oriented to enforcing foreign loan repayments and transnational corporate (TNC) (...)