Drawing on the specific case of IMF and World Bank’s response to the multiple crisis triggered by the pandemic, a journal article shows that there is a discourse-practice disjuncture in the Bretton Woods institutions approach to public services as they continue to favour austerity and market-oriented solutions for the delivery of public services. The article therefore seeks to demystify the institutions rhetoric and demand the adoption of a different way of understanding public services, and social policy more broadly.

Last week’s meetings proved yet again that without fundamental reform to how both the World Bank and IMF are governed, and how they ultimately operate, the same mistakes will be repeated again and again. And that is unacceptable.

In August 2021, the IMF issued the largest allocation of Special Drawing Rights (SDR) in history. This briefing takes stock of the discussion on how to channel unused SDRs from rich to developing countries and assesses the different solutions proposed so far.

Today the World Bank closed a consultation process on their plans to replace the discontinued Doing Business Report (DBR) with the Business Environment Enabling Project (BEE). A coalition of  CSOs have delivered a strongly worded submission arguing this is a rebranding exercise which does not address the root problems in the Bank's engagement in private sector advice

Intended by the IMF as a means to redistribute rich countries’ unused Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), the current design of the Resilience and Sustainability Trust indicates that it is far from a magic bullet. Instead, it may reproduce the inequalities of the current system and award the IMF additional powers outside of its mandate.

The Doing Business scandal brought the Bank's structural problems into the public eye, namely the weak independence and integrity of its research and the widespread conflict of interest in its policy advice.

In its use of Development Policy Financing in its Covid-19 response so far, the World Bank has lost the opportunity to break with the past and play a truly progressive and transformative role in helping countries rebuild their economies. 

This report is also available in Spanish and French

In light of the growing scandal around the World Bank's Doing Business report, Eurodad has issued the following reaction.

In the space of a few months, Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) - supplementary reserve assets created by the International Monetary Fund - have gone from being a topic for IMF geeks to the talk of the town. There are two main issues at stake.

This is the first blog in a series of blogs on SDRs.

What are Special Drawing Rights and why are they so important to the global recovery post-Covid? Find out more in this interactive infographic. 

Read our detailed analysis on SDRs | Click to expand the infograph