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Saturday, August 15, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
Eye on the IFIs
ECONOMY-PORTUGAL: Side Effects of IMF Medicine
A European Union economic forecast for 2012 indicates Portugal is the EU country that will grow the least.
EUROPE: ‘Agenda for Change’ Leaves Middle-Income Countries Out in the Cold
Last week the European Commission unveiled its ‘Agenda for Change’, a new policy framework outlining priorities for the European Union’s development aid and detailing the Commission’s renewed focus on economic growth as a means of poverty reduction, particularly in the world’s poorest countries.G20 Steps to Boost Economy Welcomed Cautiously
Responding to pressure from civil society and members within their own ranks, the Group of 20 industrialised and emerging countries on Saturday said they were committed to reforming the financial sector and were examining innovative methods to fund development.Barroso: Greece Will Remain in the Eurozone
Greece will remain in the eurozone but must meet its reform commitments in full, Jose Manuel Barroso, the head of the European Commission, has said.How to Nurse the Unemployment Epidemic
At a meeting in the suburb of Carthage, just outside of Tunis on Nov. 18, 2008, the former head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Dominique Strauss-Kahn applauded the economic efforts of the now deposed Tunisian dictator Abidine Ben Ali, calling his policies "sound, the best model for emerging countries".BELARUS: Trading Political Prisoners for Loans
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is releasing political prisoners in hope of getting loans from the IMF. After the unexpected pardons over recent weeks, only about a dozen political prisoners remain in Belarusian jails. Among them are Lukashenko’s rivals in the December 2010 presidential elections, serving up to six years of hard labour.Emerging Markets Hit Economic Stage Like a Tonne of BRICS
Headlines this week have been saturated with protests against unaffordable food, unfair taxes and unsustainable austerity measures, with one distinct difference setting these stories apart from countless others in recent history.Grassroots Women Urge Rights-Based Development Path
The streets around the headquarters of the world's leading financial institutions – the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund – have been transformed into a canvas over the last three days.Moving Aid from Fire-Fighting to Long-Term Results
Civil society organisations weighed in Friday on the risks and necessities associated with results-driven aid, asking the key question when it comes to a development project: Results for whom? Donors, or the people on the ground?Looking for Democracy in Wake of Arab Spring
Civil society and government leaders gathered at World Bank headquarters in Washington on Thursday to debate the future direction of social and government accountability in the Middle East and North Africa.China Breaks Latin America’s ‘Hundred Years of Growth Solitude’
With a shifting global landscape breeding strange bedfellows in the realm of international trade, analysts and economists gathered at the World Bank headquarters Tuesday to discuss what will likely be one of the defining partnership of the decade – China's connection with Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).
Indian Activists Bring Anti-Coal Campaign to World Bank
As leaders from two of the world's largest financial institutions, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, met for annual meetings here Tuesday, a delegation of activists from India called on the World Bank to follow through with its proposal to dramatically cut funding for coal-burning power stations.Women Hung Out to Dry in Global Labour Market
Amid policy battles over food production, energy resources and economic decline, one untapped natural resource that is guaranteed to boost production on a global scale has been stubbornly overlooked – the power of women in the labour force.World Bank, IMF Face Shifting Development Paradigm
Amid a global financial crisis that has shown little signs of reversing, next week's fall meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank are crucial in setting the tone for rebounding world markets, to which leaders of the Bretton Woods institutions offered optimistic, yet ultimately vague, solutions in speeches this week.
Q&A: Africa Keen to Ensure Kyoto Protocol Survives
Durban should not be the burial ground for the Kyoto Protocol, says Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director of Greenpeace International, about his expectations from the 17th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change happening in his hometown in South Africa later this year.Donors Fund Forced Labour in Vietnam
A leading international human rights group has accused the United States government, the World Bank and other international donors of indirectly funding forced labour in Vietnam’s drug rehabilitation centres.DEVELOPMENT: ‘Boomerang Aid Enriches Donors’
Development aid is ineffective mostly because it is tied to contracts worth billions of dollars awarded to firms in developed countries in a phenomenon called boomerang aid, a new study says.
SWAZILAND: Disagreement on How South African Loan Should be Spent
Despite the 2.4 billion emalangeni (342 million dollar) loan from the South African government to its cash-strapped neighbour, Swaziland is sinking deeper into debt.World Bank Unmoved as Allegations Build Around Official
The World Bank, which has often pressed borrowing nations to adopt more robust financial transparency regulations, has refused to disclose the financial records of one of its senior officials despite allegations of corruption, abuse of authority and mismanagement of public funds while he served as a minister under the now toppled Hosni Mubarak regime in Egypt.China Advances a Grip on IMF
The IMF’s new Chinese deputy chief Zhu Min is known by many in the financial capitals in the West for warning as early as 2007 about the dangers of the U.S. sub-prime mortgage market and its dire consequences for the global economy.Egypt Embraces Oil Monarchs, Dubiously
With the nation's economy in tatters from the uprising that ousted its dictator of 30 years, Egypt's transitional government has turned its back on the Western lending institutions that once propped the Mubarak regime. But its decision to accept the massive aid packages dangled by the oil-rich Arab Gulf states has raised suspicions about their intentions, as well as its own.« Previous Page — Next Page »
They underpin the world's financial architecture, with the power to revamp whole economies and channel billions of development dollars each year. But the so-called International Financial Institutions -- the World Bank Group, International Monetary Fund and regional investment banks -- face a new era of public scrutiny and challenges to their relevancy. How are the IFIs responding to growing demands from the South and civil society groups for greater democracy and accountability? And are they living up to their stated mission of promoting economic prosperity for all? IPS reports.
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Tracking global progress towards a sustainable world
