World Bank
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 pandemic has pushed back efforts to create more equitable societies. »
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 financial institutions to cancel low-income countries’ debt in response to… »
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 countries’ ability to invest broadly in the government services their… »
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 and age, the International Monetary… »
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 the future of work. Preparation of the WDR 2019… »
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 a woman, poor, and African. Here are the three… »
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 some basic workers’ rights and labour conditions in Bank-funded projects. »
Will the Middle East Become ‘Uninhabitable’?
Human Wrongs Watch By Baher Kamal* This is the first of a two-part series of reports focusing on the impact of climate change on the Middle East & North of Africa region, ahead of the signing ceremony of the Paris climate agreement, on 22 April 2016 in… »
Investigation tears veil off World Bank’s “promise” to eradicate poverty
By Kanya D’Almeida UNITED NATIONS, Apr 16 2015 (IPS) – An expose published Thursday by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and its media partners has revealed that in the course of a single decade, 3.4 million people were evicted from… »
World Bank safeguards ‘go out of their way’ to avoid references to human rights – UN Expert
Human Wrongs Watch The United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, on 17 December 2014 urged the World Bank to recognize the central importance of human rights to its draft environmental and social policies, also known as safeguard policies, which apply to its investment project… »