STWR - Share The World's Resources

18th December - Abid Aslam, Inter Press Service

Forty-five donor countries have pledged 25.1 billion dollars for the bank's International Development Association (IDA). This brings to 41.6 billion dollars the total available for cheap loans and grants to some 80 impoverished countries between mid-2008 and 2011 -- an increase of 9.5 billion dollars over the current three-year budget. 

7th December 07 - World Bank Independent People's Tribunal (WBIPT) Secretariat

An Independent People's Tribunal on the World Bank Group in India held in New Delhi gave the first ever opportunity to affected people, experts and academics from about 60 grassroots civil society groups to be heard by a jury of eminent and distinguished retired judges, social workers and public leaders. Excerpts from jury's preliminary findings.

22nd November 07 - Madelaine Bunting, The Guardian (UK)

Gordon Brown's commitment to Africa has been one of the most consistent themes of his political career, and as he arrives in Kampala, Uganda, at the end of this week for the Commonwealth summit, he might reasonably expect plenty of appreciation and warmth. Instead, what he's likely to face is some intense presidential lobbying that will range from the privately furious to the deeply anxious. What threatens to ambush Brown at the ceremonials is a trade deal with the European Union that has come seriously unstuck. In the next few days the pressure will be on Peter Mandelson, the European trade commissioner, to convince trade ministers he can extricate the EU from a very tight corner and what could be a public relations disaster.

12th November 07, Report - Eurodad

In 2005 the World Bank launched a review of its conditionality policy. This was in response to growing international criticism, from developed and developing countries alike, that the World Bank was still attaching too many intrusive and, at times, harmful economic policy conditions to its development finance to poor countries. 

Two years on from this important step, the World Bank is keen to represent the problem of conditionality as one that has been dealt with, and that is no longer a major problem in lending.  In order to independently assess whether or not this is the case, this report, by the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad), assesses the effectiveness of the World Bank’s Good Practice Principles (GPPs) in reforming World Bank conditionality.

6th November 07 - Adrian Boutureira, Boston Globe

We have already seen the devastating effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement in Massachusetts. According to conservative estimates, more than 100,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost in the last decade alone. Nationally, at least 3 million jobs have been sent offshore, and the wage gap continues to expand. Our trading partners have suffered, too - with huge increases in inequality and massive displacement. 

2nd November 07 - Abid Aslam, Inter Press Service

Dominique Strauss-Kahn started his first day as managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Thursday amid contention over how the agency is governed and what role it fulfils.

The 58-year-old former finance minister and French Socialist got the job partly on the strength of promises to boost developing countries' influence over how the IMF is run and what policies it prescribes. He has further promised to make the agency's loans more appealing and its advice more relevant to borrowers.

23rd October 07 - Robert Goodland, The Guardian (UK)

I worked as environmental adviser for the World Bank Group, headquartered in Washington, for 23 years. I joined because I believed the bank wanted to improve the lot of the poor and conserve the environment. Before going to Washington I did an environmental study for the government of Tucurui, the first big dam in Amazonia. A vast part of the forest was flooded, so I saw at first hand the huge environmental and social cost of misguided development projects.