Since June 2014, the security expenditure associated with battling the Islamic State organization, also known as ISIS, and the stunning decline in oil prices to an average $35 in 2016 have combined to cause grave economic troubles for the Iraqi state, creating a budget deficit of $25 billion in 2016. Today, in order to …
Linked below is a list of projects that the World Bank Group is financing or proposing to finance in Iraq as of April 28, 2016. The projects are funded by either the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the part of the World Bank Group that makes loans to the public sector in Middle …
On December 5, 2015, a group of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) from different countries across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) submitted a joint letter to World Bank Group officials (WBG or Bank) regarding the Bank’s MENA regional program implementation of its translation framework. Having the signing support of twenty-five CSOs from Yemen, Iraq, …
Image Source: Rightsobserver.org As the World Bank Group (WBG or the Bank) is currently reviewing its safeguards policies, several Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) began calling for the integration of human rights principles in the new policies, seeing human rights as an important aspect of development policies and countries programing. But integrating human rights principles (HRPs) …
Iraqi Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) are actively trying to hold their central and provincial institutions accountable. Like their local counterparts who continue to plan public protests against government corruption, some local CSOs are focusing more of their civic efforts on the development work of the World Bank (WBG or Bank) in Iraq. Five local CSOs from …
Beginning in 2011, much like other Arab Spring countries, Yemen had to face months of mass, oftentimes violent, protests that called for the toppling of Ali Abdallah Salah’s regime. In an attempt to stop the sliding of the country into further chaos, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) brokered an initiative to establish a caretaker government …
The World Bank office in Tunis held a session in June, 2015 to present and discuss its Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD)[1] for Tunisia, following which CSOs and university professors submitted comments on the SCD and the Country Partnership Framework (CPF).
After almost seven years with the Bank Information Center, we are sad to have recently said goodbye to Nadia Daar, MENA Policy Manager and Yemen Program Coordinator who has started a new position with Oxfam International.
Based on a request by a number of Iraqi civil society organizations (CSOs), a meeting was held with the World Bank’s country manager in Baghdad on 9 July 2015. In a promising step, Bank officials have contacted the participants following that meeting to inform them of the Bank’s interest in engaging civil society organizations in Iraq in third party monitoring of World Bank projects in the country.