Reflections ahead of the 2024 Annual Meetings: is a “Future-Ready” World Bank Group just another buzzword?
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Reflections ahead of the 2024 Annual Meetings: is a “Future-Ready” World Bank Group just another buzzword?
One year ago, at the time of the Annual Meetings in Marrakech, WBG President Ajay Banga said “I don’t subscribe easily to buzzwords about how to do things”. This was in response to CSO concerns about the use of the ‘cascade approach’ to development – a phrase coined by the WBG seven years ago. In plainer English it means the WBG seeks to leverage private finance in support of development and climate projects. Today, ahead of the 2024 Annual Meetings, which mark the 80th anniversary of the institution, the World Bank Group says it aims “to create a future-ready World Bank Group.” This sounds like yet another buzzword to us.
IMF/World Bank Annual Meetings
Join Eurodad and partners at the CSPF and IMF/WBG Annual Meetings 2024
Next week Eurodad will join members and partners at the Civil Society Policy Forum (CSPF) and IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings, taking place in Washington DC between 21 and 26 October 2024. Below you can find a selection of events co-organised by Eurodad, including some in which our staff will take part as panelists.
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IMF and World Bank: Reform now to tackle inequality and instability
by ITUC
The World Bank and the IMF were established to create a stable global economic system, but “international financial architecture … has left countries indebted and underdeveloped.” Ahead of the IMF/WB annual meetings, the ITUC has published a statement demanding urgent reform.
CSOs call for mandatory and meaningful consultation at the IMF
by Bretton Woods Project
Civil society has long criticised the IMF for its lack of meaningful stakeholder engagement on policy design and development. Lack of consultation is an ongoing issue affecting multiple areas of the Fund’s operations, including country missions and Article IV reports in addition to loan updates and management-led processes and policies.
Join the Global Days of Action against the IMF-World Bank – demanding debt, economic and climate justice!
Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) from more than 50 countries this week rallied behind a call targeting the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, in the lead-up to the Annual Meetings. Launching the Global Days of Action against the IFIs, they decried the 80th anniversary of the IMF and World Bank as “eight decades of debt and destruction” and “no cause for celebration” especially for countries of the Global South.
Sign the statement
Get involved in the campaign
News
Civil Society Financing for Development Mechanism's submission to FfD4 elements paper
by Civil Society Financing for Development Mechanism
This week, the Civil Society FfD Mechanism - an open civil society platform including several hundred organisations and networks across the world, including Eurodad - made a submission to the UN Financing for Development (FfD4) Elements Paper. This paper is a critical step in the FfD process towards next year's Summit. FfD has the potential to shift discussions and norm-setting on finance and development away from institutions and spaces dominated by rich countries to a more democratic space where all countries are represented and in which civil society can actively contribute.
IMF surcharges review: tinkering at the margins as crises deepen?
by Bretton Woods Project
The IMF’s surcharges review is resorting to incremental changes by reviewing the level and time base of penalty charges, instead of achieving meaningful reform.
Global CSOs' letter to ministers on the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG)
by Climate Action Network International
Crucial discussions are underway under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to reach agreement by the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) this November, on the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) for climate finance for developing countries, which will replace the existing $100 billion annual goal that is due to end in 2025.
Read the letter
Read more in a post by Mariana Paoli (Christian Aid)
Jamaica’s World Bank-brokered catastrophe bond fails to pay despite devastation of Hurricane Beryl
by Bretton Woods Project
Grave questions about the design of World Bank-brokered catastrophe (‘cat’) bonds have been raised after Hurricane Beryl, a Category 4 storm and one of the strongest hurricanes ever to hit Jamaica failed to trigger its ‘parametric’ payout criteria for Jamaica’s catastrophe bond.
Reports
Off track: The long road to mainstreaming climate action into IMF lending
by Recourse, Alternative Law Collective, ACJCE and MENA Fem
A new report from international organisation finds that the IMF is using climate change to justify austerity measures in many of its current loan programs.
Useful resources
The European Investment's Bank woeful 'green' track record in Nepal
by Sutharee Wannasiri and Durga Mani Rai (Association for the Human Rights of Nepalese Indigenous Peoples)
In 2023, the Bank invested €49bn in the “green transition,” and has publicly called itself a “climate bank” that plans even more ambitious investments in this space in the coming years. Before these efforts move forward however, the bank must take an honest look at its own troubling history on renewable energy projects — specifically, the projects it has funded that have harmed environments and communities, which have largely gone unaddressed.
Events
21 Oct | Washington DC | Creating a fit-for-crisis global financial safety net: The role of IMF Special Drawing Rights
The recent UN Pact for the Future highlighted the role that Special Drawing Rights could play – alongside other reforms to the international financial architecture – in creating a global financial safety net that meets the challenges of the current moment.
This panel will discuss the way forward on this critical issue on the side-lines of the 2024 World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings.
28-29 Jan 2025 | Barcelona and online | Eurodad international conference: 2025 - a once in a decade opportunity to achieve economic justice
Our next International Conference will take place in Barcelona in January and will be co-hosted with our Spanish members Debt Observatory in Globalization (ODG), Oxfam Intermon and Alianza-ActionAid Spain. It will provide a unique opportunity to share ideas ahead of the UN Financing for Development Conference (FfD4) in the country that will host the summit.
Stay tuned, registrations open soon!
Vacancies
Tax justice officer (Chargé.e de plaidoyer justice fiscale)
CCFD-Terre Solidaire
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This newsletter has been produced with co-funding from the European Union, Bread for the World and Norad. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of Eurodad and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the funders. |
