By Andy Currier
OAKLAND, California, USA, May 15 2025 (IPS)

Last week, at its annual Land Conference in Washington D.C., (May 5-8), the World Bank showed allegiance to the new US administration by dropping the pretense of promoting land reform for climate action and confirming that its land agenda is about boosting corporate profits.

Climate Focus Abandoned to Appease Trump

While it had previously announced that the 2025 conference would focus on the “foundational role of securing land tenure and access for climate action,” the Bank scrambled in response to the seismic political shift brought on by the second Trump presidency.

The administration’s “America First” agenda has slashed global development aid, including 85 percent of USAID programs that were unceremoniously and abruptly ended. After exiting the Paris Agreement on climate, Trump also proposed a budget that would further reduce federal climate change programs.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently reassured the Bretton Woods Institutions that their largest shareholder would not be pulling out at their Spring Meetings in April 2025. He did, however, specify that the Bank and IMF “must step back from their sprawling and unfocused agendas,” condemning their work on climate, gender, and other social issues.

In response, Bank staff were allegedly instructed not to mention climate or gender at the Spring Meetings, as the institutions cower under US pressure.

Just weeks before the Land Conference started, its website was altered to remove the headline banner on “Securing Land Tenure and Access for Climate Action.” The last-minute shift in messaging – just a year after launching a multi-billion-dollar land initiative – confirms the findings of a recent exposé by the Oakland Institute:

The Bank’s land push was never actually about climate action. Released the week before the conference, the Climatewash report revealed how the Bank intends to open lands to agribusiness, mining of “transition minerals,” and false solutions like carbon credits – fueling dispossession and environmental destruction.

Land Conference homepage in February 2025 (left) and then in May 2025 (right), after focus on climate was scrubbed. Source: The World Bank

At last year’s Land Conference – focused on “Securing Land Tenure and Access for Climate Action” – the Bank unveiled plans to massively expand its influence on land policy around the world through the Global Program on Land Tenure Security and Land Access for Climate Goals.

It announced plans to “ensure 100 million people see greater tenure security… and improve land administration and land access for climate action in 20 countries” over the next five years. Towards these goals, the Bank said it will double its investment in the land sector – from US$5 billion to US$10 billion – and double the number of countries where it will intervene with land projects.

Land Reform to Serve Corporate Interests

Despite the dramatic branding shift, the agenda at last week’s conference did not change and several positive sessions focused on climate action and Indigenous rights were held, including a welcome discussion on the importance of “securing collective lands.” The focus on changing land tenure for “economic growth” and “unlocking private capital,” however, took center stage.

At the opening plenary, Rohitesh Dhawan, President and CEO of the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) – the principal trade association of the mining industry – delivered the keynote.

Given the egregious human rights and environmental record of the mining industry, the ICMM’s prominent platform was both startling and revealing, laying bare the true interests the conference would serve. Dhawan began by explaining why he was “more hopeful than ever” about the bright future so-called “sustainable” mining could provide:

“We can literally move mountains and shift the course of ancient rivers, But should we? In many cases, the answer will be yes, because all things considered, as a society, we may reach consensus that the need for commodities and the opportunity for host countries to prosper, grow, and develop means that mining should go ahead with the least possible disruption to land, impacted people, and nature.”

While Dhawan went on to say that Free, Prior, and Informed, Consent was “front and center in their approach,” and areas like World Heritage Sites were off limits, he assumes communities will eventually come to accept mining on their lands despite the grave social, environmental, and economic toll it has historically inflicted upon them.

In a telling moment, when the opening panel was asked to give an example of a successful co-ownership model between firms and locals, no examples from Africa or Latin America came to mind. These communities continue to push for genuine authority over their lands, but have seen little progress despite these conference hall platitudes and promises.

Later in the week, several sessions focused on securing land for carbon markets, unsurprising given the lead role the Bank plays in promoting this dangerous false climate solution that has failed to reduce emissions. While it has been extensively documented how carbon offsetting primarily benefits predatory actors at the expense of local communities, the Bank continues to champion these schemes.

Other sessions discussed the role land policies can play in “developing” agriculture, another expected focus in light of the Bank’s new plan to double its agri-finance and agribusiness commitments to US$9 billion annually by 2030.

In one event, Malawi was hailed as a land reform success story, despite the role of the Bank in blocking recent efforts to address historical inequities in land ownership, as detailed in the Climatewash report. Instead, the Bank has coerced Malawi to implement policies favorable to agribusiness.

These conferences are largely symbolic and even if the focus was on climate action, the true impact of the Bank’s efforts remains the same. In practice, the Bank’s land programs and policy prescriptions dismantle collective land tenure systems and promote individual titling and land markets as the norm, paving the way for private investment and corporate takeover.

These reforms, often financed through loans taken by governments, force countries into debt while pushing a “structural transformation” that displaces smallholder farmers, undermines food sovereignty, and prioritizes industrial agriculture and extractive industries.

At this critical juncture to address the climate crisis, this impact directly opposes the IPCC’s recommendations around stopping land conversion.

The Bank is now scrambling to appease Trump, who is content to watch the world burn as long as he and his wealthy oligarchs continue to profit. Through its global land reform agenda, the Bank facilitates the dispossession of local communities across the Global South under its past northstar of economic growth.

The mask is now off – and any illusions that these efforts will help secure rights or address the climate crisis have been shattered.

Andy Currier is Policy Analyst at the Oakland Institute.

IPS UN Bureau

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By Andy Currier
SAN FRANCISCO, USA, Sep 29 2021 (IPS)

The September 16, 2021 announcement from the World Bank that it had discontinued publication of the Doing Business Report (DBR) marked a major victory for people and planet.

Since 2002, the DBR has scored and ranked countries on the “ease of doing business,” i.e. on regulatory changes and reforms that make them more attractive to private investors. These “reforms” have included lowering corporate taxes, slashing environmental safeguards, social and labor standards, cutting administrative procedures, and removing restrictions to trade and business.

Cancellation of the DBR comes after data irregularities were found in the 2018 and 2020 reports. Audits revealed serious ethical concerns of data manipulation – shattering trust in the rankings. An explosive external review delivered to the Bank’s Board of Executive Directors exposed how senior Bank officials applied pressure to manipulate data in order to improve rankings for select countries.

Notably, the independent report exposed how then-Bank CEO (and current IMF Managing Director) Kristalina Georgieva applied “pressure” to “make specific changes to China’s data points in an effort to increase its ranking for the 2018 DBR,” at a time the country was expected to increase its financial contribution to the Bank’s capital. Then-World Bank President Dr. Jim Yong Kim was also indirectly implicated in the effort to increase China’s ranking.

Simeon Jankov, one of the founders of the DBR and a senior Bank official was also incriminated in altering Saudi Arabia’s data to boost the country’s ranking, in an effort to reward the country for the “important role it played in the Bank community.”

Saudi Arabia had previously implemented a series of Reimbursable Advisory Services (RAS) projects – paid advisory services provided by the Bank, some of which focus on improving economic indicators scored on the DBR. Elevating Saudi Arabia to first place in the Top Improvers list was done to “demonstrate the effectiveness of the Bank’s efforts and validate the amount of money Saudi Arabia had spent on RAS projects relating to the Doing Business Report.”

While shocking, these revelations are not the first charges of data manipulation brought against the Bank’s flagship publication. In 2018, the World Bank’s then-Chief Economist, Paul Romer exposed how DBR scores for Chile were skewed and politically manipulated to disfavor Michelle Bachelet’s progressive government.

While Romer admitted “business conditions did not get worse in Chile” under Bachelet, the country’s DBR rank fell from 25th to 57th while she was in power. The Bank denied Romer’s allegations and he subsequently resigned.

The blatant evidence of manipulation of the rankings is a slap in the face of the poorest countries that deregulated their economies to gain favor with the Bank. Consumed by climbing the rankings, policy makers around the world prioritized reforms that would improve their score instead of pursuing policies that would benefit people or the environment.

Even before the extent of the data manipulation came to light and destroyed any credibility of the DBR, the rankings were built on a flawed premise that rewarded countries for reducing their labor standards, destroying the environment, and providing easy access for corporate pillaging and land grabs.

For instance, the DBR ranked Sierra Leone, as one of “the top 15 economies that improved their business regulatory environment the most” after the country implemented policy changes that fast-tracked land leases, attracting foreign investors eager to develop large-scale oil palm and sugar cane plantations that deprived local communities of the land essential to their livelihoods.

Similarly, the DBR ranked Liberia as a “top ten global reformer” in 2010 after it prioritized lowering tax rates for corporations, provided guarantees to investors “against unfair expropriation,” and “ensur[ed] the ability of investors to repatriate capital and profits,” among other pro-corporate reforms. These policy changes resulted in giant palm oil and rubber producers acquiring more than 1.5 million acres of land – once again at the expense of community livelihoods.

Sustained Civil Society Mobilization Driving Force in Ending DBR

The Bank and IMF’s structural adjustments programs (SAPs) implemented in the 1980s and 1990s, impoverished millions in developing countries after imposing the withdrawal of state intervention and sweeping liberalization of economies as conditions to receive loans. The same year sustained mobilization from civil society finally ended SAPs, the Bank created the DBR to repackage and push the same neoliberal doctrine.

Over the past 18 years, the DBR has been met with strong resistance from the global labor movement and groups advocating for more equitable development policies in the Global South. Since 2014, the 280-organization strong Our Land Our Business campaign – comprised of NGOs, unions, farmers, and consumer groups from over 80 countries – has called for the end of the rankings.

For over seven years, Our Land Our Business has waged a steadfast advocacy campaign, including letters, petitions, and mass protests around the world. Coordinating the campaign, the Oakland Institute has produced dozens of reports and advocacy materials providing in-depth analysis and monitoring the impact of the DBR for people around the world.

Pressure on the Bank to end the DBR grew in March 2021 when the Rights Not Rankings Campaign – comprised of over 360 civil society organizations, academics and trade unions ¬–called on the Bank to end the program given that the “underlying premises of the Doing Business Report are not supported by evidence and contradict the objectives of a just recovery,” from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

While a landmark victory, these campaigns remain vigilant as the World Bank continues to leverage its influence and pressure countries to prioritize reforms that benefit corporate interests over true development. The scandal that derailed the DBR reveals ingrained institutional flaws in the World Bank and the biased, pro-corporate ideology and development pathway it continues to promote.

Next, the Bank should end the Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA) Program. Created in the image of the DBR, the EBA rewards countries for implementing reforms in the agriculture sector that benefit agribusiness over the small farmers who actually feed the world. The revelations that have ended the DBR undeniably discredit the EBA and add to the Program’s crisis of legitimacy. The Our Land Our Business Campaign will continue its unwavering advocacy until the EBA joins the DBR in the dustbin of history.

Despite the work ahead, the end of the DBR should be widely celebrated as it marks the end of a tool wielded on the behalf of global capital interests for nearly two decades. Its demise was long overdue and clears the way for policies that serve people and the planet first.

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