STWR - Share The World's Resources

Mexico’s experience with NAFTA underscores the need to reform international trade agreements. Governments must shape new policies that respect the right to development and protect the environment, says a report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

In response to the global economic downturn, the World Bank has prioritised middle-income nations over the poorest countries and ignored the key social and environmental outcomes of its financing, finds a report the Heinrich Böll Foundation.  

The IMF claims to have become more flexible in its lending requirements to cash-strapped countries. Yet as this joint report indicates, the Fund is still imposing inappropriate conditions on borrowers that will erode social protection for the poor.

In past financial crises, the International Monetary Fund has failed as an effective lender of last resort. This time, governments should insist that the practice of the IMF is reformed before allocating it further resources, says a report by CEPR.

For the first time in a quarter century, the World Bank's flagship annual report - the World Development Report 2008 - on development puts agriculture and the productivity of small farmers at the heart of a global agenda to reduce poverty. Three-quarters of the world’s poor still live in the countryside.

Despite the long-stated policy of the World Bank and IMF to monitor the impact of their advice on poor people, this Eurodad joint-NGO report argues that these institutions consistently fail to ensure that there is a proper assessment of the likely consequences of different policy actions.