On September 30th, the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission held a hearing at the United States Congress on international financial institutions (IFIs) and human rights, chaired by Congressman Jim McGovern. Witnesses included BIC’s Nezir Sinani from Kosovo, Milton Sanchez from Peru, and Obang Metho from Ethiopia, who testified on the human rights impacts of World …
BIC recently published two reports analyzing the impact of World Bank and IFC finance on forests and forest peoples around the world. These publications outline the findings of BIC’s review of World Bank Group public and private sector lending from the perspective of investments both within the forest sector, and in the primary sectors that …
On August 4, 2015 the World Bank publicly released the second draft of its Environmental and Social Framework (ESF), thus initiating Phase 3 of the safeguards review. The ESF contains the safeguard policies designed to protect communities and the environment in World Bank investment projects. The effectiveness of the World Bank’s new safeguards is compromised by several …
June 2015 Following a letter that multiple Tunisian CSOs sent to the World Bank office in Tunis with their asks regarding the Tunisian Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) and Country Partnership Framework (CPF) consultation process, the signatories of the letter – along with several other CSOs and academics – were invited to participate in a discussion …
The Bank has commenced with the process of Country Partnership Frameworks in a number of MENA countries. Each country has taken a different path than originally expected.
First and foremost, the organizations are asking that clear information be posted on the Bank’s website regarding the CPF timeline. As it stands, there is no information about the CPF process in Tunisia either on the Bank’s country webpage or on the Bank’s consultation hub.
Egyptian rights groups, community members, and laborers impacted by a hazardous cement plant financed by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) filed a complaint on April 8, 2015 with the body’s independent grievance mechanism. The grievance mechanism, called the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman, or CAO, has now deemed the complaint eligible to move through the grievance process. …
More than 100 organisations across the world released a joint open statement expressing deep concerns about the World Bank’s support for a multinational chain of low-fee profit-making private primary schools targeting poor families in Kenya and Uganda, Bridge International Academies (BIA).
Egypt and Morocco are the two largest recipients of World Bank lending in the Middle East and North Africa region and as such it was appropriate and important that the Bank held consultations in those two countries as part of a series of global consultations around the Bank’s draft of its proposed Environmental and Social …
Despite the political situation in Iraq, civil society groups seem adamant on continuing their legitimate fight for sound accountability mechanisms in the country. This is especially true with the run up to the implementation of the 2008 law on decentralization that will transfer the responsibility of services delivery to the provinces, and the resulting need …