World Bank

The World Bank and the BRICS Bank Have New Leaders and Different Outlooks

In late February 2023, U.S. President Joe Biden announced that the United States had placed the nomination of Ajay Banga to be the next head of the World Bank, established in 1944. There will be no other official candidates for this job…

What caused Sri Lanka’s disaster?

If I say Facebook did it, people would wonder if I have developed some mental illness. If I say IMF and World Bank did it, economics buffs would cringe, because they were not even in the picture, at least directly.…

Disability Discrimination at the World Bank: Is it Immunity or Impunity?

By  Thalif Deen *  The 15,900-strong World Bank, which has funded over 12,000 development projects worldwide since 1947, is an international institution with a superlative reputation for its sustained efforts to end poverty in the developing world—with loans, interest-free credit…

The virus that shut down the world: The yawning gulf between rich and poor

Inequality between the rich and poor worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic and poverty increased, for the first time in decades. In part two of our series on how the virus has changed the world, we look at the ways the…

Sanders and Omar Lead 300+ Global Lawmakers in Call to Protect Developing Countries from Economic Ruin

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) led more than 300 international lawmakers across two dozen countries in a letter to the leadership of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) today, calling on the international…

Time for the World Bank and IMF to Be the Solution, Not the Problem

By Franciscka Lucien and Joel Curtain The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have a historic opportunity to help stabilize a world reeling from COVID-19. Doing so will require the institutions to change course and aggressively support poor…

Global Economy Still Slowing, Dangerously Vulnerable

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram In an annual ritual early in the year, most major economic organizations have released forecasts for the global economy in 2020. Incredibly, almost as a reminder of where financial power resides in this day…

The World Development Report produced by the World Bank almost completely ignores workers’ rights

12 April by Peter Bakvis for the Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt 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…

African women united against microcredit vultures

“The IMF and the World Bank have over-indebted my country. Their structural adjustment programs have pushed women into microcredit, supported by the World Bank… Many microcredit institutions lead them to over-indebtedness and impoverishment”. By Fátima Martín, Femenino Rural   To be…

World Bank should uphold ILO standards in new labour safeguard

The World Bank’s updated Environmental and Social Framework, a draft of which will be considered by the Bank’s executive board on 4 August, introduces a new labour standard that would, for the first time, require borrowing countries to comply with…

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