Eye on the IFIs

ALBANIA: Thermal Plant Threatens Tourism

By Claudia Ciobanu
The building of a thermal power plant in Vlora could reduce Albania's electricity deficit, but it would also damage one of the country's most beautiful tourist destinations. The local population is fighting to have the factory built elsewhere.

DEVELOPMENT: EU Keeps IMF Within the Club

By IPS Correspondents
The European Union's finance ministers have decided that Frenchman Dominique Strauss-Kahn should head the International Monetary Fund (IMF), despite calls for the post to be opened up to candidates from poor countries.

FINANCE: Development Banks Lag on Sexual Health – Report

By Emad Mekay
Despite strong verbal commitments to reproductive and sexual health, the so-called multilateral development banks (MDBs) that lend to poor nations have spent relatively little money on such projects and, in some cases, have followed policies on the ground that in fact impeded women's empowerment and improved public health, a new study charges.

AFRICA: Food for 12 Billion. So Why Did 854 Million Go Without?

By IPS Correspondents
"As you are suffering from over-consumption, I am suffering from under-consumption. We need to strike a balance," said Mary Wahu Kaara from the Kenya Debt Relief Network with reference to the North and the South.

FINANCE: De Rato Steps Down from IMF Top Job

By Emad Mekay
Rodrigo de Rato, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), says he will be quitting his job at the helm of one of the world's economic powerhouses in October.

CLIMATE CHANGE: U.S. Backs Clean Energy – In Asia

By Emad Mekay
The United States and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) are joining forces to coax Asian nations to switch to cleaner forms of energy, in hopes of averting a predicted spike in carbon emissions by the world's fastest-growing region.

ENERGY-SRI LANKA: Solar Power Gets A Boost

By Feizal Samath
There may be nothing new in a recent World Bank credit facility to provide electricity through renewable power to thousands of rural homes. But for the growing solar power sector here, it is a giant step in taking the industry forward.

POLITICS: Washington Passes World Bank Torch

By Emad Mekay
The World Bank's board of directors confirmed Robert Zoellick Monday as the lender's next president, under a World War II-era tacit agreement that gives Washington the privilege of filling the institution's top job.

FINANCE: Bias Seen in Int’l Dispute Arbiters

By Emad Mekay
A little known entity closely affiliated with the World Bank that mediates disputes between sovereign nations and foreign investors appears to be skewed toward corporations in Northern countries, according to an IPS review of pending cases and other independent analyses of the tribunals.

AFRICA: G8 Has Yet to Deliver on Aid Promises – World Bank

By Kester Kenn Klomegah
The industrialised nations of the Group of Eight are failing on the promises made in their previous summits to help Africa's economic development and to push for poverty alleviation for those struggling to survive on less than a dollar per day, say World Bank experts and development activists.
Construction of Camisea gas pipeline in Peru. Credit: Adam Goldstein/Amazon Watch

ENVIRONMENT: Audit Clears Once-Leaky Pipeline for Funding

By Emad Mekay
A controversial gas pipeline in the pristine heart of the Amazon forest that has ruptured six times since its inception received a clean bill of health this week from the main financial backer, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), drawing scepticism from indigenous groups and international environmentalists.

CIVIL SOCIETY: That Much Holier Than the World Bank?

By Sanjay Suri
It might be an unexpected tribute to Paul Wolfowitz that he departed leaving the World Bank a little more civil society like. It might just happen, going by some suggestions John Garrison, senior civil society specialist with the World Bank, made at the Civicus world assembly in Glasgow Friday.

POLITICS: World Bank Should Go With Wolfowitz – Activists

By IPS Correspondents
Paul Wolfowitz's fall from grace is symptomatic of the double standards and hypocrisy of the World Bank and strains the marriage between neo-liberal policies and militarism that he embodied, say activists and analysts.

CHINA: As Role Model for African Development

By IPS Correspondents
China is playing a rare host to this year's annual meeting of the African Development Bank (AfDB), hoping to assert its mode of growth as role model for the impoverished African continent and benefit from its rich resources and economic potential.

POPULATION: NGOs Warn of World Bank “Fundamentalists”

By Thalif Deen
When the United States tried to water down a longstanding policy on reproductive health and family planning at the World Bank last month, there was a storm of protests from population experts and activist groups worldwide.

FINANCE: Activists Decry Bank’s Loan Approval for Uganda Dam

By Emad Mekay
Brushing aside concerns from environmentalists and rights groups, the World Bank said Thursday it will support the controversial Bujagali dam in Uganda with 360 million dollars in loans and guarantees.

DEVELOPMENT-PAKISTAN: Expressway to Concrete Paradise

By Zofeen Ebrahim
City mayor Syed Mustafa Kamal believes that the answer to this port city's many woes lies in constructing a 24 km elevated expressway at a cost of 225 million US dollars.

TRADE-AFRICA: Green Investment to Get Boost from New EU Fund

By IPS Correspondents
After years of promising a way to help Africa tackle climate change, the European Union has joined with the World Bank to attract foreign direct investment to the continent and help save the planet at the same time.

ECONOMY-MALAWI: Being a ”Good Pupil” Can Be Bad for You

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
Five years after the famine in which more than 1,000 Malawians died and 8 million of the country's 12 million people suffered from hunger, the bitter memory of bad policy advice still lingers on.

ENVIRONMENT: World Bank Failing to Rein In DRC Logging

By Eli Clifton
The World Bank is failing in its efforts to bring the Democratic Republic of Congo's rainforest logging industry under control, leading to negative implications for climate change, and rampant corruption, according to a new report.

POLITICS: Wolfowitz Contradicted on Family Planning Claim

By Emad Mekay
Despite denials by World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz Thursday, newly disclosed internal documents indicate that the Bank may have in fact reversed a longstanding policy of promoting family planning on his watch.
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