Forests in Focus

Last week world leaders met in Bonn to continue to negotiate global responses to climate change under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The World Bank has a responsibility to support actions on climate change and ensure that it respects peoples’ rights and promote sustainable development in all its activities. In response 77 civil society organizations from around the world has called on the World Bank to prioritize forests and forest peoples’ rights in its support to borrowing countries and for the implementation of their climate commitments. See the …

World Bank projects and policies affect the lives and livelihoods of billions of people worldwide. If done right, this can be for the better, but decades of experience tell us that this is not always the case. The Bank has set itself two goals to be achieved by 2030 – to end extreme poverty and to boost shared prosperity. But despite these laudable ambitions, it has repeatedly been exposed for backing harmful projects and programs in developing countries. In 2014 the Bank launched a new approach for how it engages in …

  After several months of negotiations, and the announcement of a record $75 billion replenishment for the World Bank’s fund for the poorest countries, the final IDA18 replenishment report was publicly released in late January, 2017. The agreement to fund the World Bank’s soft-loan window comes at an uncertain time for development aid in the United States, with President Trump proposing to slash foreign aid assistance, and completely cut foreign climate change programs. Nevertheless, the IDA18 agreement is an ambitious proposal that is an important step forward for the Bank in how …

A Forest of Money? – PDF Today, BIC is publishing a translation of an important study on international finance for forests in Peru, titled “Un Bosque de Dinero” or “A Forest of Money” in English, which was written in collaboration with Derecho, Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (DAR). This extensive study examines financing from Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), National Development Agencies, and the Government of Peru, with the finding that funds are currently distributed in an uncoordinated manner and are therefore not used as effectively as they could be. The study covers …

BIC Rebuttal to the World Bank’s Response to BIC’s case studies on Development Policy Operations in Peru, Egypt, Mozambique, and Indonesia March 2017 In January 2017, the Bank Information Center (BIC) along with international and local partner organizations published a report and four case studies on seven World Bank policy lending investments in Peru, Egypt, Mozambique and Indonesia. The studies revealed, inter alia, that these policy loans were undermining the Bank’s climate change commitments and forest protection efforts by introducing new fossil fuel subsidies, including for coal.  BIC met with World …

Lima, Peru. January 24, 2017 Summary On January 24th, 2017, Bank Information Center, Derechos Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (DAR) and AIDESEP (Interethnic Association of the Peruvian Amazon) presented a workshop titled “Reformas Globales y Alcances Nacionales” to an audience of approximately 50 participants from Peruvian civil society, including representatives from AIDESEP’s executive leadership and its nine regional federations. The goal of the workshop was to seize the opportunity presented by the World Bank’s development of a new Country Partnership Framework (CPF) with the government of Peru (GOP), a document that determines …

Clearing for a coal mine, Central Kalimantan forest Credit: Andrew Taylor/WDM, taken on June 8, 2013 Licensed under:https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ PRESS RELEASE: World Bank introducing new fossil fuel subsidies, undermining its own climate change commitments and forest protection efforts New analysis of Bank’s $5-billion-dollar policy loans shows lender supporting investment incentives for coal and other fossil fuel projects in Southeast Asia, South America, Africa and the Middle East, threatening climate change efforts, indigenous groups and natural resources Washington, DC (January 26, 2017)—World Bank policy loans are creating subsidies for coal, gas and oil …

January 11, 2017 The World Bank is in the process of drafting a new Country Partnership Framework to guide its work in Peru for the next four to six years. This framework is slated to be finalized by April 2017, and is meant to include feedback and comments from stakeholders. However, no draft of this framework will be released before April 2017. Civil society groups in Peru, together with Bank Information Center, sent a letter to the World Bank office in Lima requesting that the draft of the Country Partnership Framework …

The World Bank Group is covertly funding some of India’s largest and most reckless corporations, according to the results of an ongoing investigation by Inclusive Development International. The World Bank’s private-sector arm, the IFC, is bankrolling these companies through its support for six Indian commercial banks. The end users of IFC funds in India are some of the country’s most notorious and abusive companies. Recipients of indirect IFC funds include Vedanta Resources, NHPC Limited and Jindal Steel & Power, which have well-documented records of complicity in grave human rights violations and …

Despite promises from World Bank President Jim Kim over two years ago to personally assist in addressing tensions over indigenous land rights in Kenya, approximately 1200 families of the Sengwer indigenous community were told by the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) on Dec. 1 they had just 7 days to leave their ancestral land in the Embobut forest. Embobut is situated within the Cherangany Hills of western Kenya, which has attracted the interest of the World Bank and other development actors eager to partner with the Kenyan government on forest and water …