The World Bank’s 2007 Doing Business Report rewards countries with low levels of labourprotection and the IMF’s World Economic Outlook (WEO) urges labour market deregulation.Organised labour, developing country governments and US senators have called for theinstitutions to respect the standards of the International Labour Organization.

Doing Business, released inSeptember, ranks 175 countries onhow “business friendly” they are.The annual report, first publishedin 2003, is used as a guide both forforeign investors and for govern-ments prioritising so-called‘investment climate reforms’.According to the report, Georgiais the “top reformer”, followed byRomania and Mexico.

The September 2006 WEOreiterated the standard IMF bilat-eral advice: “ensuring significantstructural flexibility, including inlabour markets, while establish-ing effective social safety nets willprove increasingly important”.Labour market flexibility refers toreforms to make it easier to hireand fire workers as well as limitson collective bargaining andrights to unionise. The WEO rec-ommended these changes forJapan, the Latin American region,emerging Asian economies, andindustrial countries. IMF ArticleIV consultations, annual country-level reports on the state of theeconomy, give the same advice,most recently to France, Korea,Serbia and Poland.

The International Confederationof Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) hasdocumented how Doing Businesshas been used by the World Bankand IMF to “force countries to doaway with various kinds of work-ers’ protection”. For example, arecent Bank economic memoran-dum to Colombia demanded thatthe government make hiring andfiring decisions more flexible inorder to improve its DoingBusiness ranking. In South Africa,the IMF’s Article IV report recom-mended “streamlining” hiringand dismissal procedures, whichwould have required doing away

with affirmative action rules thatpost-apartheid governments putin place in order to correct thelegacy of several decades of racialdiscrimination.

Guy Ryder, general secretaryof the ICFTU, said “the WorldBank and the IMF need to workmore closely with trade unions,civil society organisations, andUN bodies such as the ILO todevelop policies that support thedecent work agenda.”

A letter in October from six USsenators to Bank president

Wolfowitz notes that countrieswith inadequate labour protectionare ranked high in Doing Business,contradicting ILO standards. Thesenators cited Saudi Arabia’s bestpossible score on the ‘employingworkers’ index, despite its prohi-bitions of freedom of association,the right to organise and collectivebargaining, all violations of ILOlabour standards. They also “failto see how praising countries forfailing to guarantee a minimumwage and pay lifts people out ofpoverty” and called on the Bank

to coordinate all future publicstatements regarding labour withthe ILO.

The senators join calls for Bankand Fund coherence with ILO stan-dards emanating from developingcountry governments. In her state-ments at both the spring meetingsof the IMF and World Bank inWashington and the annual meet-ings in Singapore, Felisa Miceli, theArgentine minister for the econo-my, pressed the institutions to “seecompliance with core labour stan-dards not only as ethically impera-tive but also as necessary to avoid arace to the bottom to attract invest-ment.” Miceli continued, “Beforeadvocating for additional labour‘flexibility’ (frequently just an ele-gant way of asking for less protec-tion) staff should ... consult theILO.”

In its analysis of Doing Business,Latin American NGO D3E pointedout that “the way in which compa-nies manage (or not) their socialand environmental impact isnot taken into account”. AuthorCarolina Villalba concludes that theBank’s objective is to promote largeinvestments aimed at exportingcommodities which create “com-paratively few job opportunitiesbut have high social and environ-mental impacts”.

The push for removal of labourprotections has been based onempirical studies that link strin-gent labour market regulation tounemployment. The IMF’s April2003 WEO said “the causes of highunemployment can be found inlabour market institutions.”However, this contradicts the find-ings of the Bank’s WorldDevelopment Report 2006 (see Update48), which found that the effect ofemployment protection legislationon employment is “ambiguous”and that countries should notreduce such legislation withoutimproving social protection andjob creation schemes.

How the Bank and IMF use theDoing Business Report, ICFTU

www.icftu.org/www/PDF/doing-businessicftuanalysis0606.pdf

The World Bank insists on the liberalization of economies, D3E

www.southdevelopment.org/economy/VillalbaDoingBusiness.pdf

Bank, Fund sidestep labour standards:Promote violation of workers’ rights

WW

W.B

RE

TTON

WO

OD

SPR

OJE

CT.O

RG

NO

VEM

BE

R/

DE

CE

MB

ER

20

06

53

World Bank corruption fightdrags on

page 2

Good governance or badpractice in Singapore

comment, page 3

IMF macroeconomic advice:‘Thanks, but no thanks’

page 4

Global energy solutions bankon carbon trading

page 7

ROBIN

HEIG

HW

AY

-BURY/TH

ORO

GO

OD

BRETTON WOODS UPDATE NUMBER 53 - NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2006

2

World Bank corruption fight drags onThe World Bank’s anti-corruption framework was the subject of a bruising Development Committeedebate at the annual meetings. Further challenges for the Bank include the impact on anti-corrup-tion efforts of a rapid rise in Chinese lending to developing countries and debt campaigners use ofthe corruption issue to highlight creditor responsibility for ‘illegitimate lending’.

The stand-off at the Septembermeeting was between boardmembers led by the US andJapan who support the Bank’santi-corruption framework, andthose who feel the frameworkjeopardises the developmentmandate of the Bank, includingdeveloping countries and severalEuropean board members, mostnotably the UK. In the end, theblock led by the UK gained theupper hand, with the commu-niqué stressing “the importanceof board oversight of the strategyas it is further developed”.

At the meetings of the G24group of developing countries,Mushtaq Khan of the School ofOriental and African Studies inLondon dissected the Bank’sown empirical analysis to refuteany causal connection betweencorruption and growth. Thiscoincides with the view of theBank’s own evaluation unitwhich, in a leaked note on theanti-corruption framework,described the link between cor-ruption and country perform-ance as “varied and diverse”.Khan calls for a more nuancedunderstanding of the “structuraldrivers” of corruption, the differ-ent types of corruption whichresult and the appropriate poli-cies to address them.

Civil society groups havebeen determined to slow the paceof the framework’s development(see Update 52). In response, theBank announced a second con-sultation on the framework run-ning until January. Bank staff willorganise “multi-stakeholder

workshops” in “several” coun-tries. A more extensive consulta-tion process was rejected due tothe requirement to report to theboard in January.

The Bank’s internal workplan is much more extensive,including: systematic consultation;formation of a steering committeeto develop options for “country-level engagement”; strengthen-ing of governance units; develop-ment of staff guidelines; an inde-pendent review of the depart-ment of institutional integrity;and new methodologies forcountry governance assessments.

Faulty measurements?

All sides agree that the key to root-ing out corruption is building better governance institutions; butwhat institutions and how tomeasure their effectiveness?Visiting London in October to dis-cuss the Bank’s strategy, DanielKaufmann, creator of the Bank’sgovernance assessments, said:“The call for additional indicatorsis fine, but let’s not get into the pitfall of not using the good thingsthat exist.” However, an OECDreport published in August sug-gests severe problems with theconstruction and use of the Bank’sgovernance indicators, includingcorrelation errors, lack of compa-rability over time, sample bias,and insufficient transparency.

This may lead the Bank to listento the “modest proposal” ofCornell University economistRavi Kanbur to introduce out-comes-based indicators in itsgovernance assessments. Kanbur

argues for the inclusion of “anactual development outcomevariable” such as one of theMillennium Development Goalindicators.

China crisis

China has reportedly committed$8.1 billion to Sub-SaharanAfrican countries this year com-pared with $2.3 billion pledgedby the Bank. While recipient gov-ernments may see Chinesemoney as a windfall free from themeddling conditions of Westernaid agencies, the World Bank hasvoiced concerns that corruptregimes may turn to China toavoid facing anti-corruptionmeasures or environmental andsocial safeguards.

Speaking ahead of a China-Africa summit held in Beijing inearly November, Bank presidentPaul Wolfowitz said big Chinesebanks “do not respect” the EquatorPrinciples - a voluntary code ofconduct pledging that projectsfinanced by private bank lendingwill meet certain social and environmental standards. China’sforeign ministry spokesman LiuJianchao shot back, “in fact, thisbenefits Africa’s economic andsocial development.”

Wolfowitz also said he wasconcerned about lending byChina, Venezuela, India and oth-ers to poor countries that hadbenefited from debt relief: “Thereis a real risk of seeing countrieswhich have benefited from debtrelief become heavily indebtedonce more.” In Bank parlance,this is called the ‘free rider’

problem. New Bank policy meansthat poor countries which arefound guilty of borrowing from‘free riding’ creditors will be punished by having concessionalfinancing cut or made more expensive.

Bank watchers have criticisedthis approach for punishing poorborrowers while doing nothing todiscipline ‘opportunistic’ lenders.Celine Tan, researcher at WarwickUniversity, concludes that themeasures proposed by the Bank todeal with the ‘free riding’ problemrepresent “new mechanisms tocontinue binding countries tofinancing flows - and therebyfinancial discipline.”

Illegitimate lenders

Debt campaigners have main-tained that northern donors mustaccept responsibility where theyhave knowingly entered into loanarrangements which were used forcorrupt or other illegitimate purposes. A breakthrough came inOctober when Norway announcedthe unconditional cancellation of$80 million in “illegitimate debts”owed by Egypt, Ecuador, Peru,Jamaica and Sierra Leone.Immediately donors will be pressured to cancel Liberia’s debtswhose arrears to the World Bankand IMF - made up of lending tothe former dictator Samuel Doe -amount to over $1.5 billion.

Strengthening Bank Group engagement in governance

Governance and anti-corruptionreforms in developing countries

Reforming the formula

Only 22% of IFI inforequests fulfilledA new study released in October bythe Global Transparency Initiative (GTI)undermines IFI claims to increasedtransparency. Only 22 per cent ofrequests for information about IFI doc-uments - submitted to both the IFIsand member governments - were sat-isfactorily responded to. The requestswere filed according to a rigorous uni-form methodology in Argentina,Bulgaria, Mexico, Slovakia and SouthAfrica. To remedy the situation, the GTIhas launched an IFI transparencycharter, a statement of the standardsto which IFI information disclosurepolicies should conform and a keyadvocacy tool for the promotion ofmore progressive policies.

www.ifitransparency.org

German firm debarredover Lesotho fraudIn November, the Bank debarredGerman engineering firm LahmeyerInternational over bribery convictionsin the Lesotho Highlands Water proj-ect (see Update 52). Lahmeyer isbarred from receiving Bank funds forup to seven years, but could see thatverdict reduced by four years “if itproves its corporate behaviour haschanged”. The decision to debarLahmeyer now for a crime for whichit was indicted in 1999 “sends thewrong signal to other corporatebribers” says Patricia Adams of NGOProbe International. “The Bank shouldhave taken swift action and suspend-ed the company’s right to do businesswhen they were originally indicted -as is allowed for under the US foreigncorrupt practices act.”

Bank’s handling of fragilestates “unsatisfactory”In September the IndependentEvaluation Group (IEG) released itsreview of World Bank support to‘fragile states’. The report gave theBank a mixed review on its effective-ness, but raised serious questionsboth about the way the Bank isorganised internally to deal withfragile states and the system it usesto allocate resources. Researchersand Bank-watchers question whetherthe review has gone far enough toexamine what causes state ‘fragility’and what role Bank-led reforms andprojects may play in fostering it.

www.worldbank.org/ieg/licuswww.brettonwoodsproject.org/ieglicus

Growth commissionlatestThe workplan of the Bank’s independentcommission on growth (see Update 51)has now been clarified. Twenty-onecountry case studies “will discuss individual growth and poverty reductionexperiences and analyse how they wereor were not achieved”. At least 40 back-ground papers are being commissionedexamining the impacts on growth of climate change, health, education, gender, infrastructure, governance, equity,urban economic growth, migration,trade in services, etc. Finally, the Bankis in the process of organising regionalworkshops in Cartagena, Colombia inMarch and Maputo, Mozambique inApril, with final dates to be determined.

www.worldbank.org/prem/growth-commission

www.worldbank.org/gover-nancefeedback

www.g24.org/khan0906.pdf

www.arts.cornell.edu/pover-ty/kanbur/IDAForm.pdf

The IMF-World Bank annual meetings inSingapore were visible for not addressingIMF governance reform and for the anti-corruption framework proposed bythe Bank. Media all around the world not only covered the draconiansecurity measures put in place by Singapore, but also the violation of the civil and political rights of NGOs and social movements’ representatives that went there to take part in the meetings. These measures aimed to suffocate the voices of the peoples.

Just a few days before the beginning of the parallel meeting - theInternational People’s Forum, in Batam, Indonesia - local policeauthorities announced on Indonesian television that they would notallow the Forum to be held. Civil society organisations condemnedthe Indonesian government for repressing the democratic right toexpress peaceful disapproval over World Bank and IMF policies, andthe Singapore government for applying pressure on the Indonesianauthorities to cancel the Forum. After intensive media work, theIndonesian authorities reversed their decision.

Another clear sign of disrespect of civil and political rights wasthe Singapore authorities’ blacklisting of selected organisations andindividuals. The list included delegates accredited to take part in theWorld Bank and IMF official meetings. The prohibition was partiallyreversed after broad criticism. But the measure, allowing the entry of22 of the 27 blacklisted individuals, was too little, too late. Expensivetravel plans had already been undone and no reason was given forleaving five individuals on the list.

Over 160 civil society groups joined the call for a boycott of theofficial IMF/World Bank meetings. The call highlighted the responsibilityof both institutions for the developments. Unfortunately, moreoppressive events were still to come. And my detention and deportationwas just a part of them. As part of the ActionAid delegation, I was intransit to Singapore and Batam to voice our views on the IFIs and theimpact of their policies on poverty and inequality.

Like many other peaceful activists, I was held in customs andtaken away for interrogation. My detention extended for more than30 hours. During this period, I was subjected to intense interrogationand utmost humiliation. All my documents, money, personal belongingsand my entire luggage were confiscated. I was fingerprinted andphotographed several times. I was kept for more than 20 hourslocked in a room under observation where I was not able to turn offthe lights or go to the toilet unescorted. I was not allowed to speak toanyone in the same situation as me or to make phone calls.

Absolutely no reason was given regarding my detention anddeportation by Singaporean authorities, despite requests from thegovernment of Brazil to allow my entry.

Many other civil society delegates were also detained for severalhours, subjected to repeated interrogation, fingerprinting and searches,but released with written warnings not to participate in any protest.Others like me were deported without explanation. Both cases showa lack of respect for fundamental liberties.

Denying entry to civil society representatives violated the termsof the memorandum of understanding that Singapore signed withthe global institutions. Nevertheless, no strong measures were takenby IMF and WB representatives. Instead, the IMF’s governing body,the International Monetary and Finance Committee, said in theircommuniqué that they “express their gratitude to the Singaporeauthorities for the excellent arrangements”. In spite of the ‘good governance’ discourse the World Bank and IMF showed how out oftouch they are with the practice of genuine democracy.

BRETTON WOODS UPDATE NUMBER 53 - NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2006

To most people who caught the news ofthe banning of activists from enteringSingapore, the week of 14-20 Septembercould have been one of the more eventful

in the history of the Bank-Fund meetings. World Bank president PaulWolfowitz’s description of Singapore’s actions as “authoritarian”added interest to the whole incident, and highlighted the seeming frictionbetween the Bank’s vaunted openness to civil society engagement andthe host country’s stringent laws on public assembly.

I was one of those banned, and eventually un-banned, fromentering Singapore that week. I did go to Singapore to be at a pressconference with others from the International People’s Forum againstthe IFIs. The inconvenience and the anxiety of being labelled a “security and law and order” consideration were the thoughts thatpreoccupied me at the time.

Judging from the results of the Bank-Fund meetings, the eventfulweek was not so eventful after all. The media attention masked thenon-event inside the meetings. Developing member countries gainednothing of significance.

Realising the limited space Singapore provided for civil societyaction, many groups (including Focus on the Global South) soughtaccreditation to the meetings for the first time. We were interested inchallenging the Bank and Fund on their policy and practice even in their own space. Ironically, it was precisely the Bank’s lack of influence over Singapore that made the banning of accredited participants possible.

The initial concerns that preoccupied me were forgotten and werereplaced by a series of questions. Was it entirely Singapore’s fault, orindeed was it at all? Was the fault of the Bank and Fund limited tothe choice of Singapore as a venue? Was it wise to have prioritisedchallenging the Bank and the Fund inside their space? For me,Singapore crystallised a lot of lessons learned from many years ofexperience with engagement. Owing to the nature of internationalinstitutions, it is imperative that we monitor them, challenge them,protest their policies and practices that have negative impacts - inshort, engage. What happened in Singapore underscored how muchor how little the possibility is of affecting institutions that are notdesigned to be responsive to what people like me say.

The Bank and the Fund are institutions structured like corporationswhere the biggest stockholders hold the biggest number of votes. My vote is represented by an executive director, and it is measlycompared to the American vote that can veto all of the other votescombined. The relationship between the Bank and Fund and mycountry is that of creditor-debtor, fraught with uneven balance ofpower. And while some may say that the Bank and Fund are theinstitutions most open to civil society participation, it has to beremembered that they were not so before Latin America was de-industrialised, African development practically ground to a halt,and the entire developing world was buried in debt, courtesy of itsstructural adjustment programmes. In short, civil society was calledin after they already made a big mess.

The Bank and the Fund profusely thanked Singapore and congratulated it for a job well done in hosting the event, keepingsilent about the five people who remained on the Singapore bannedlist, and quieter still about the many others who were stopped, interrogated and deported. Engagement (perhaps it is high time tofind another, more appropriate term) remains the norm. But ifengagement favours protest and denouncement, it is becauseengagers get tired of dancing to bad music too.

3

We welcome submissions from representatives of Southern civil society organisations for the “comment” feature. If you are interested in contributing please contact comment@brettonwoodsproject.org

Jenina Joy Chavez,senior associate at

Focus on the Global South

Maria Clara Couto Soares, ActionAid’s head of policy for the Americas Region

Good governance or badpractices? Two activists reflecton their mistreatment at the

World Bank-IMF annual meetings in Singapore

COMMENT COMMENT

BRETTON WOODS UPDATE NUMBER 53 - NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2006

During the annual meetings inSingapore the board of governorsof the Fund passed a resolution(see Update 52) that sets in motiona two-year quota reform processwhich may end up eroding, notenhancing, the voice of developingcountries in the institution.

The resolution - which includedad hoc quota increases for four countries (China, SouthKorea, Turkey and Mexico) andcommitments to revise the quotaformula and increase the level ofbasic votes - was approved byIMF members accounting for 90.6 per cent of the voting rights.Concrete proposals for the newquota formula and the size of thebasic vote increase should cometo the executive board before theannual meetings in 2007.

It was reported that 23 coun-tries voted against the measure,including India, Argentina andBrazil. Indian finance ministerPalaniappan Chidambaram said,“We were not in favour of any ad hocism including the proposedtwo-stage process based on a hopelessly flawed formula. We believed that all reforms ...could have been adopted simultaneously as a package.”

Most developed countrieshave trumpeted the commitment

to “at least a doubling of the‘basic’ votes”. Basic votes, whichare allocated to every countryand are not tied to the quota formula, have dropped from over11 per cent of total votes at thetime of the Fund’s inception tojust 2.1 per cent now. Becausedeveloping countries outnumberdeveloped countries in the Fund,increasing basic votes booststheir share of the total vote.

However, even a trebling ofbasic votes would do little toaffect the distribution of power orchange decision making procedures.No proposal for changing the

basic votes would prevent industri-alised economies from maintainingtheir majority of voting weight.

The change in basic votes will be tied to agreement on “asimpler and more transparent”quota formula. The worry fordeveloping countries is that thenew formula will actually lowertheir share of the total vote. Whilethe factors to be included in anew formula will be the subjectof negotiation over the next year,the US, the EU and Japan allagree that GDP at marketexchange rates should be the predominant factor. While the

US has left room to considerabsolute variability of the currentaccount, the EU prefers a formulabased on openness to trade.

In either formulation, combininga two-factor formula with a trebling of basic votes wouldactually decrease the votingpower of developing countriesfrom their current share of about30 per cent to ranges of 20 percent to 25 per cent of the total.While the US has committed to forgoing any quota increasethat it may be entitled to under a revised formula, no otherdeveloped country has been willing to do the same.

In fact, the EU has stated theopposite. In a draft position document leaked to newswireBloomberg, EU member statesrefused to swear off increases totheir quotas. They have alsorejected using variability as a factor in a new formula andlooked to delay quota adjustmenteven in the medium-term.

IMF quota reform is inadequate,reaction to IMFC communiqué

The IMF’s ability to dictate eco-nomic policy to member states isfraying because of lost credibilityin the wake of its failures in EastAsia, Argentina and Russia.Developing countries are nowrejecting the Fund’s interferencein their economies.

In the midst of Ecuador’spresidential election in October,the IMF reportedly recommendedin private that the governmentaccumulate reserves to guardagainst a drop in the oil price anda possible adverse ruling in aninvestment arbitration case witha multinational oil company. TheSeptember 2006 World EconomicOutlook (WEO), a semi-annualIMF report, criticised Ecuador’senergy investment policies.

Ecuadorean economy minis-ter Armando Rodas called theWEO “a poor report filled withfallacies” and demanded that theIMF stop meddling in Ecuador’sinternal affairs. One candidate inNovember’s presidential run-off,Rafael Correa, has flirted withdeclaring a unilateral moratoriumon repayment of Ecuador’s debtto the IMF to free up resources forsocial programmes.

South Africa has also publicly

refused the IMF’s advice. Thecentral bank in South Africa has arelatively broad band for its inflationtarget of three to six per cent. Inthe Fund’s 2006 Article IV consultation, an annual economicreport produced for each Fundmember, staff suggested that thebank explicitly target the midpoint of the band. Centralbank governor Tito Mbowenirebuffed the IMF and declaredthat it should “avoid anythingthat would appear to be policyprescriptive for countries whichare not borrowing from [it]”.

Rates, reserves policies in flux

The industrial world, increasing-ly concerned over China’s tradesurplus growth, is pushing for the IMF to increase its surveil-lance of exchange rate regimes.One idea floated by USresearcher John Williamson is forthe IMF to publish equilibriumexchange rates for each membercountry regardless of the currencyregime in use. It is widely viewedthat this suggestion is targeted at China, whose curren-cy is considered undervalued bythe United States and Europe.

However, an October Fund

working paper by Dunaway,Leigh and Li concluded thatsmall changes in model specifica-tions can lead to substantial differences in equilibrium realexchange rate estimates: “Thus,such estimates should be treatedwith great caution.”

The executive board is stillreviewing the IMF’s policy onexchange rate surveillance,which was last revised in 1977,but it is unlikely to reach consensus.In his statement to the IMFC, Nor Mohammed Yakcop,Malaysia’s finance minister,argued against the review of thepolicy, saying “we do not supportthe proposal for the Fund todetermine and make publicwhether a member’s exchangerate is misaligned. It is widelyknown that the estimation ofequilibrium exchange rate levelsis highly sensitive to the underlyingassumption.” Similar resistancewas expressed by ministers fromArgentina and Nigeria.

A recent Fund working paperon the optimal level of foreignexchange reserves by Jeanne andRancière was unable to accountfor the enormous build up of dollars in East Asia’s coffers.

The weakness of the model wasits assumption that the solerationale for holding reserveswas to buffer against shocks togrowth from sudden stops ofcapital inflows. It ignored thepolitical and economic riskscountries and politicians face ingoing to the IMF during a crisis.

A recent G24 paper by InjooSohn of Princeton Universityexplained Asian countries’ rationalein developing alternatives to theIMF: “An increasing number of developing countries havequestioned the legitimacy andeffectiveness of the relativelyexclusive decision-making structureof global financial governance,particularly after the 1997-98Asian financial crisis. East Asia is thus calling for substantial IMF reform at the global levelwhile pursuing new financialmultilateralism at the regionallevel.”

Ecuador, elections and the IMF

East Asia’s counterweight strategy

4

IMF macroeconomic advice: ‘thanks, but no thanks’

IMF quota reform poses risks to developing countries

brettonwoodsproject.org/prquota0609

While commentators have called for a ‘grand bargain’ on IMF governancereform (see Updates 48, 51), powerful members have resisted anything butthe smallest changes to the executive board. The recent proposal only calledfor more staff resources and more than one alternate executive director (ED)for large constituencies.

These minor changes do not address the imbalance in board representation whichsees Europeans hold one-third of board chairs. Europeans have consistently sought toprotect their privileges at the IMF, and refused to link board and quota reform. The boardcontinues to refuse to publish voting records or transcripts of meetings.

The board’s poor functioning and imbalance has prompted the New Rules for Global Finance Coalition to convene a high-level panel on IMF board accountability. The panel - which includes former EDs, academics, IMF officials and representatives from civil society - will publish its recommendations in January.

Board reform off the table

www.newrules.org/docs/imfreform/imfaccountability100306.htm

ifis.choike.org/informes/458.html

www.g24.org/sohn0906.pdf

BRETTON WOODS UPDATE NUMBER 53 - NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2006

5

The Bank’s formal commitment to disability work began in June 2002with the founding of the disability and development team within thesocial protection unit of the human development vice-presidency.The team’s primary focus is on cooperating at the international levelon including the disabled in development, but it also assists thosewho ensure that the Bank’s internal working practices do not preventdisabled staff members from effective participation in the Bank.

Currently the disability and development team has five full-timeand three part-time staff. Inclusion of the disabled is generally notadvanced through dedicated lending projects, but integrated as aspectsof other projects, for example ensuring a transit project is accessible todisabled persons.

The Bank cites its mainstreaming approach as the reasonwhy it has no figures on the volume of Bank resources ded-icated to working with the disabled. However, it estimatesthat in the last four years four per cent of all Bank projects,representing five per cent of lending volume, have integrat-ed disability as a component of their work. In that time, thedisability team has worked with approximately 80 staff inregional, country and sectoral offices. For example, theteam worked on a flagship project on the inclusion of disabil-ity in development work in India.

In 2002 and 2004 the World Bank organised conferences on disabil-ity and development to mark the UN international day of disabledpeople. Much of the Bank’s early work in this field involved improv-ing the data available about disability. Nobel-prize winning economistAmartya Sen’s speech at the 2004 conference highlighted the effortsthat needed to be made to adapt poverty lines to consider the higherincomes needed to achieve the same quality of life by the disabled.

The Bank also set up the Global Partnership for Disability andDevelopment (GPDD) in 2004, an international consortium of develop-ment agencies, NGOs and governments. The GPDD does not engagein field work but seeks to “increase collaboration among developmentagencies and organisations to reduce the extreme poverty and exclu-sion” of the disabled. It essentially serves as a clearinghouse for infor-

mation on disability and its secretariat will be established at the Bankbefore the end of 2006. Civil society organisations on the coordinatingtask force include World Vision UK, the African Deaf Union andHandicap International.

The World Bank also administers a multi-donor trust fund, established in December 2005, related to disability, but its work plan is under construction and it has not yet funded any projects. The trustfund’s main role is to fund the activities of the GPDD. Finland, Italyand Norway sit on the donor committee of the fund, which is expectedto disburse $700,000 a year for five years.

The Bank also participates in inter-agency cooperation to ensurethat the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled Persons is

implemented. Despite this rights-based approach, theBank’s region and country offices have free reign todevelop their own work programmes on disability: “Each region of the Bank has its own approach to disability”which “depends on cultural, economic and social environments and by the financial situation in the country.”

The disability and development team developed atoolkit covering knowledge on thematic areas related to

disability - for example data collection, disability in theproject cycle and disability law. The toolkit served as the

guideline for training courses with Bank team leaders in Africa andEast Asia to teach them how to include disability in development pro-grammes. The team also works on the links between disability andother issues that have captured the Bank’s attention in recent yearssuch as water, sanitation, communication and youth. Bank engagementwith disabled people’s organisations and civil society at large is doneboth by the disability team and at country level.

Disability and development website

Global Partnership on Disability and Development

Differences of opinion over con-ditionality blew up into anembarrassing spat between theBank and the UK at the annualmeetings forcing the Bank into asecond review of conditionality.

Conditionality - stipulatingpolicy changes governmentsmust make in order to receiveloans or grants - is common prac-tice at the Bank. As part of itscontribution to the last replenish-ment of the InternationalDevelopment Association (theBank’s lending arm to low-income countries), the UK made£50 million contingent on theBank making “satisfactoryprogress” on “implementing therecommendations in the 2005review of World Bank condition-ality” (see Update 47). The reviewcommitted the Bank to five ‘goodpractice principles’ in the use ofconditions: ownership, harmoni-sation, customisation, criticality,and transparency and pre-dictability. An internal Bankreview released in Septemberwhich found that it is “broadlyfollowing” the new principleswas contradicted by NGOresearch (see Update 52) and failedto satisfy the criteria of the UK.

Stung by rebukes on both thisissue and the anti-corruptionframework (see page 2), Bankofficials struck back, accusing UKinternational development secre-tary Hilary Benn of “manufactur-ing a non-crisis to score points inthe UK by pretending to stand upto the Bank. It plays well in theparty leadership race back homebut has absolutely nothing to dowith helping poor people.”Wolfowitz was forced to climbdown by the end of September,writing in a letter to the FinancialTimes that it was “unwise of Bankofficials to attribute this campaign to the political ambi-tions of Hilary Benn”, and that itwas “right to question past Bankpolicies regarding conditionality”.

In late November the Bankreleased a progress reportresponding to the UK’s concerns.The report contends that the Bankhas made “satisfactory progressin implementing the recommen-dations of the 2005 review ofWorld Bank conditionality”.However, there is “considerableroom for improvement” including:• upstream disclosure of Bank analytic work;

• avoiding the use of policy condi-tionality in “sensitive areas”;• avoiding overlap of conditionalitywith the IMF; and• avoiding unnecessary process conditions.

It is anticipated that theprogress report will satisfy theboard when it is discussed 5 December. The next progressreport on conditionality isplanned in two year’s time.

Denunciations of the WorldBank’s use of conditionality fromcivil society groups around theworld continue unabated. InOctober for example, a civil society symposium in SierraLeone called for reform of condi-tionality policy, while more than2000 people marched on theoffices of the World Bank inColombo calling for an end toharmful economic policy conditions.

The Norwegian governmentis hosting a conference on condi-tionality end November whichwill bring together developmentofficials from Sweden, Denmark,Finland, the UK, Canada,Germany and The Netherlands todiscuss more appropriate andeffective conditionality for the

future. As input to the conference, the Norwegian ministry of for-eign affairs commissionedresearch on the impact of conditions. Case study countriesare Bangladesh, Mozambique,Zambia and Uganda.Preliminary findings include:• the Bank is significantly morepragmatic than it used to be,although it is still exploring ways toincrease private participation in theprovision of services;• privatisation conditionality stillfigures in a majority of the IMF’sPoverty Reduction and GrowthFacilities;• in trade, the basic thrust towardsliberalisation continues, withchanges due to the shifting globalcontext as well as prior liberalisationat the country level; and • there is a great deal of variation inBank and Fund practice.

World Bank no more!, MONLAR

ww ww ww .. gg ee oo cc ii tt ii ee ss .. cc oo mm // mm oo nn --llaarrssllkk//eevveennts/docs/Reject_WB_dictates.pdfNorwegian Church Aid

The World Bank and disabilityInside the institutions

Split highlights growing call to rethink conditionality

www.geocities.com/mon-larslk/events/docs/Reject_WB_dictates.pdf

english.nca.no/

www.worldbank.org/disability

www.worldbank.org/disability/gpdd

4 per cent of allBank projects

have integrateddisability

This includes contributions fromhigh profile experts on the issueand from the Bank’s new legalcounsel, Ana Palacio. Meanwhile,the World Bank’s private sectorarm, the International FinanceCorporation (IFC) continues topioneer its niche private sectorrole in supporting human rights(see Update 52).

The five year Nordic trustfund will finance: training forWorld Bank staff; pilot projectslinked to poverty reduction strat-egy papers; and developmentindicators for “efficient” humanrights and justice programmes.Ulrika Sundberg from theSwedish ministry of foreignaffairs states that there is a lack ofpractical evidence to show thathuman rights considerations“constitute an added value to theeconomic development process”and that World Bank economistsneed convincing of this fact. Sheenvisages a debate on condition-ality “for decisions on the granti-ng of loans or aid to be subject totangible results in the area ofhuman rights”. She also assertsthat “the World Bank should nottake over the UN’s role when itcomes to human rights”.

Ana Palacio emphasises that“the World Bank has limitationson strictly political activities”,based on its articles of agreement.She asserts that “the overarchinggoal of human rights frameworksis the empowerment of the weak-est most marginalised, includingthe poor”. She puts much empha-sis on the World Bank’s “facilita-tive role”, to support countrymembers to realise theirhuman rights obliga-tions. Importantlyshe states that“human rightswould not be thebasis for an increasein Bank condition-alities, nor shouldthey be seen as anagenda that could pres-ent an obstacle for disbursementor increase the cost of doing busi-ness”. She also highlights theintegration of human rights withthe Bank’s promotion of goodgovernance and anti-corruptionwork. She makes no mention ofthe Bank’s own role in contribut-ing to violations in recipientcountries and ways in which itshould address this, or access tojustice for those affected.

Reactions to Palacio’s state-ment have been mixed.“Although her focus is largelylimited to economic, social andcultural rights, she has at leastemphasised legal empowermentof the poor as an important con-sideration”, said Anne Perraultfrom the Center for InternationalEnvironmental Law. “We shouldwatch to see if the Bank’s focus,

in practice, remains entirelyon what states are obli-

gated to do and not onwhat the World Bankmust do”. Others fearthat the Bank will useits newly adoptedhuman rights speak asa means to legitimise

its good governanceand anti-corruption agenda

(see Update 52), and that efforts to“support its members to fulfiltheir obligations” will result inyet more loan conditionality.

The IFC claims to be “activelysupporting” the operationalisa-tion of the UN Norms onBusiness and Human Rights intoprivate sector lending require-ments and asserts that its “policyand performance standards aresupportive of human rights”.

Responding to a report edited byCanadian NGO, The HalifaxInitiative (see Update 51) on theIFC’s revision of its lending stan-dards, the IFC says it is “trying tostrengthen [its] support of humanrights at the project level”, partic-ularly in relation to its lendingstandards on labour, securityforces, housing and indigenouspeoples. Fraser Reilly-King fromThe Halifax Initiative said: “suchan assertion is astonishing whenyou look at IFC-supported proj-ects associated with clear humanrights violations, such as theGlamis goldmine in Guatemalaand Anvil copper-silver mine inthe Congo. If the IFC were toensure that its standards complywith international law and thatits projects do not underminehuman rights directly or indirect-ly as called for by the ExtractiveIndustries Review, that would bea different matter.” The IFC willlaunch its human rights impactassessment in December.

Nordic trust fund

Development Outreach

IFC response on human rights

Human rights or conditionality?

BRETTON WOODS UPDATE NUMBER 53 - NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2006

6

The World Bank’s annual WorldDevelopment Report (WDR) wasreleased in September focusingon youth. Plans are underway fornext year’s edition on agricul-ture, and follow-up continues onlast year’s report on equity.

The authors of the youthreport apply “three lenses” toimprove the focus of youth policydevelopment: expanding oppor-tunities; enhancing capabilities;and giving “second chances”.Despite bringing much neededattention to the issue of youthand development, NGOs havefound many familiar Bank pre-scriptions in the report.

NGOs working on youthissues have welcomed thereport’s attention to “secondchances”, however PLANInternational believes insufficientattention is directed to con-fronting the structural factorsthat generate “inequalities ofopportunity” in the first place:

“the negative impact of exclu-sionary structures, politicalprocesses, policies and institu-tions is overly played down.”

Willy Thys, general secretaryof the World Confederation ofLabour, slated the report: “It isthe Bank’s own standard policies- government austerity, deregula-tion, privatisation and liberalisa-tion - that has created many ofthe problems the report tries toaddress, such as growing povertyamong young people and the factthat a majority of youth, particular-ly young women, only can findwork in the informal economy”.

David Archer, head of educa-tion for ActionAid Internationalfinds the report has “ideologicalattachments” in education. Hecites the report’s support forschool vouchers, performance-based pay for teachers, public-private partnerships and costsharing as examples where ideologytriumphs evidence.

WDR 08 on agriculture

The report outline covers threeareas: investing in agriculture forgrowth, making agriculturalgrowth pro-poor, and integratingagriculture-for-development into national and global policyagendas. The outline sends outencouraging signals about keyissues that will be addressed inthe report, including environ-mental degradation, the role ofindigenous knowledge and theimpacts of market concentration.

Undoubtedly controversial willbe issues such as biotechnology,land reform, subsidies and theimpacts of trade liberalisation. Anelectronic consultation on the firstdraft of the report is scheduledfor January-February. The finalreport will be published inSeptember 2007.

Follow-up on WDR equity

Last year’s WDR on equity found

that rising global inequity is a “bad thing” for both the intrinsicunjustness it represents andbecause of the instrumental relationship between equity anddevelopment. Sweden’s developmentagency has provided funds to support the operationalisation ofthe report. Support is being providedto a small number of country teamswhere there is interest in equityissues including Cambodia, Kenya,Zambia and Chile. In parallel withthe country pilots, a research programme is being fleshed out.This includes improving abilities tomeasure inequity, and work on“the relationship between incomelevels and health and educationoutcomes”.

World Development Reportswww.worldbank.org/wdr

Bringing equity into developmentwww.ifiwatchnet.org/docu-

ments/item.shtml?x48184

World Development Report 2007 on youth: familiar prescriptions

In October the Swedish minister of foreign affairs launched a Nordic trust fund for justice andhuman rights, and the World Bank Institute devoted its latest edition of Development Outreach,to human rights and development.

World Bank on human rights:“active support” but no politics

www.manskligarattigheter.gov.se/extra/pod/?id=44&mod-ule_instance=2&action=pod_show&navid=44

www1.worldbank.org/devoutreach/#6

www.halifaxinitiative.org/index.php/projects/821

www.brettonwoodsproject.org/humanrights52

human rights would not be the

basis for anincrease in Bankconditionalities

BRETTON WOODS UPDATE NUMBER 53 - NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2006

7

GGlloobbaall eenneerrggyy ssoolluuttiioonnss bbaannkk oonn ccaarrbboonn ttrraaddiinnggIn the midst of climate talks in Nairobi and the release of the Stern review on the potential catastrophic economic impacts ofclimate change, the World Bank has been touting the most recent draft of its investment framework on clean energy anddevelopment, and stepping up its role in devising market-based solutions to climate change. Critics have decried the hypocrisyof the Bank’s role in funding fossil fuel projects, and the perverse rationale behind carbon trading.

The latest draft of the WorldBank’s investment framework forclean energy and developmentwas published in September (seeUpdate 51). The framework nowincludes an “Africa action planfor improved energy access” andis based on three ‘pillars’: energyfor development and access forthe poor; transition to a low car-bon economy; and adaptation toclimate change.

It encourages a cost-effectiveand “sustainable” transition to alow-carbon economy, “withouthindering the growth of develop-ing countries and mitigating theincremental costs to them”. Itemphasises the need for “energysector policy reform to attract private sector investments andadditional public sector financing”,and additional concessional support for energy needs in Sub-Saharan Africa. It proposesnew financial instruments,notably the clean energy financ-ing vehicle and the clean energysupport fund; makes suggestionsfor the role of the GlobalEnvironment Facility (GEF); andadvocates for “sound countryenergy policies” and “regulatoryframeworks.”

Many criticisms of the firstdraft of this framework published in April still stand,including the Bank’s promotionof large hydropower, nuclear andcoal-fired power projects as‘clean’ alternatives, and the failure to challenge the responsi-bility of northern polluters. A coalition of NGOs, elaboratedthese issues in a report entitled

How the World Bank’s energy frame-work sells the climate and poor people short. It points out thatdespite laudable statements onenergy poverty, and the adverseeffects that climate change canhave on poor peoples’ liveli-hoods, the new framework is stillfundamentally flawed. Thereport urges the Bank to redirectdirty energy in 2006 only 4 percent went to renewable energy projects financing to renewabletechnologies and energy efficiencyprojects via an appropriate multi-lateral framework. PantoroTri Kuswar of Friends of theEarth Indonesia/WALHI said“the Bank’s focus on fossil fuelprojects will not bring electricityto the poor but instead lead tomore pollution, conflict and corruption and do little to stopclimate change”.

Reliable and comparable dataon World Bank energy spendingis elusive: the World Bank saysthat it financed $871 million inrenewable energy and energyefficiency in fiscal year 2006 but arecent analysis by Friends of theEarth pulls this claim apart. Notonly do these figures includeenvironmentally damaging largehydropower projects but alsoprojects funded by the GEF or bycarbon finance funds, which aretechnically separate from theWorld Bank. Of the $ 4.4 billionthat the Bank claims for all of itsenergy sector investments in fiscalyear 2006, only four per centactually went to renewable energyprojects like wind, solar, andgeothermal production. More

than 82 per cent of World Bankfinancing for oil extraction hasgone to projects that export oil back to wealthy northern countries.

A campaign by theUK student networkPeople & Planet aimsto end the contradictionbetween UK govern-ment targets to tackle climate change bycutting greenhouse gasemissions, and the contin-ued use of UK development aidto support fossil fuel extractionprojects that generate energy forconsumption in the north. People& Planet are calling on DFID tophase out all support for fossilfuel extractive projects, and massively increase support fornew renewable energy sources toaddress the growing energyneeds of emerging and developingeconomies without concurrentincreases in carbon emissions. Atthe same time, an internationalcampaign called “end oil aid” has been set up to address theissues at the intersection of oildependence, climate change andinternational debt.

Trade yourself neutral

The World Bank is the largestpublic broker of carbon purchases.Its investment framework placesconsiderable emphasis on marketsolutions. The Bank and IMFproudly announced that theirannual meetings were ‘carbonneutral’. The assumption that theproblem of climate change can be

traded away, while maintainingthe economic status quo is under-mined in a recent book edited by

Larry Lohmann. It pointsout that despite the World Bank’sinvolvement in carbontrading initiativessuch as the CleanD e v e l o p m e n tMechanism andPrototype Carbon

Fund (see Update 47),from 1992 through 2004 it

approved $11 billion in financingfor 128 fossil-fuel extraction projects in 45 countries. Theseprojects will ultimately lead tomore than 43 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, “ afigure hundreds of times morethan the emissions reductionsthat signatories to the KyotoProtocol are required to makebetween 1990 and 2012”.

World Bank energy framework sellsclimate and poor short

Carbon trading: A critical conversation on climate change

Ditch dirty development

End oil aid

Uruguay announcesearly IMF repaymentIn November Uruguay committed toclearing its balances with the IMF earlierthan required, announcing its intentionto repay its remaining balance of $1.1billion sometime next year. The remain-ing debt was not due to be repaid until2008. This follows two other early repay-ments, made in March and July.Uruguayan economy minister DaniloAstori said that the decision marked thebeginning of a new phase in his coun-try’s relationship with the IMF. The repay-ments will likely be financed by new sov-ereign bond issues. The IMF welcomedboth the early repayment announcementby Uruguay and the completed earlyrepayment by Indonesia.

New senior staff atIMF, BankIMF managing director Rodrigo de Ratoselected the deputy finance minister ofBrazil, Murilo Portugal, to succeed AgustínCarstens as the next IMF deputy manag-ing director. Portugal’s appointment bringshim back to Washington where he servedfour years as an executive director at theWorld Bank and seven years as an ED atthe Fund. Kristalina Georgieva will serveas director for strategy and operations inthe Bank’s sustainable development vice-presidency. The position was created inJune by Bank president Paul Wolfowitzfollowing the merger of the environmen-tally and socially sustainable developmentand the infrastructure networks. Georgievais currently the World Bank’s countrydirector for Russia.

CAO fails to reduceconflict in PeruA report by Friends of the Earth findsthat the ‘roundtable dialogue’ set up bythe World Bank’s Compliance AdvisorOmbudsman (CAO) has been unable tofulfil its objectives to intervene effective-ly in conflicts between the IFC-supportedYanacocha mine company (see Updates42, 53) and affected communities inCajamarca, Peru. Local groups haveasked for the roundtable’s dissolutionon the grounds that it lacks independ-ence and has been manipulated bymining company interests. The inde-pendence of the CAO was immediatelydoubted due to its association with theIFC and the mining company.

www.foei.org/publications/pdfs/cao_cajamarca.pdf

Uruguay pulp mills: "no risk"The IFC and MIGA have approved fundingfor a controversial pulp mill project inUruguay. This follows an IFC impactassessment which found few environmentaland social risks. The project is being builtby Finland's Botnia in the town of FrayBentos on the river dividing Uruguay fromArgentina. Funding for a second project bySpain's ENCE is on hold since itsannouncement to relocate its plant. In Julythe International Court of Justice rejectedArgentina's request to order Uruguay tosuspend construction of the mills. An ICJjudgement on whether Uruguay hasbreached a 1975 river treaty is expectedwithin two years. Blockades by Argentineactivists have resumed.

www.brettonwoodsproject.org/bot-nia-ence51

www.tni.org/ctw-docs/ddcar-bontradepress.htm

peopleandplanet.org/ditchdirtydevelopment

www.endoilaid.org

www.ifiwatchnet.org/docu-ments/item.shtml?x=46133

only four per cent actually

went to renewableenergy

53

Published by Bretton Woods ProjectCritical voices on the World Bank and IMF

No permission needed to reproduce articles. Please pass to colleagues interested inthe Bank and Fund, and let us know of other groups interested in getting the Update.The Update is available in print, on the web and by e-mail.Subscriptions: www.brettonwoodsproject.org/subs

Bretton Woods ProjectHamlyn House, Macdonald Road, London N19 5PG, UK

+44 (0)20 7561 7610+44 (0)20 7272 0899info@brettonwoodsproject.orgwww.brettonwoodsproject.org

An independent non-governmental organisation, supported by a network of UK NGOs, the C.S. Mott Foundation and the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation.

Designed and printed by RAP Spiderweb on recycled paper.

BRETTON WOODS UPDATE

ISSN 1471 - 1168

After a decline in the late 90s,World Bank lending for waterprojects has been rapidly increas-ing, reaching $1.8 billion in FY05.The Bank which is the largestexternal financier in this sector,claims to have “learnt from pastmistakes”. Projects in South Asiaand Sub-Saharan Africa suggestotherwise.

An investigation by theWorld Bank Inspection Panel hasfound that the World Bank-fund-ed water project in Pakistan, theNational Drainage Program(NDP) (see Update 52) has led towidespread environmental harmand suffering among local communities. The project hascontributed to deadly floods andviolates - either fully or partially -six of the Bank’s safeguard policies.

The World Bank approved$285 million for the NDP in 1997.The project was supposed toimprove drainage in Pakistan’sirrigation system in order toaddress salinisation and water-logging. The Inspection Panelreported that the alignment of thedrainage canals was “technicallyand environmentally risky”, and“mistakes were made during the design” of the canals.Consequently “increased salinityhas affected large tracts of agri-cultural lands” and the failure ofthe drainage infrastructure “hasled to major harm to the ecosystem,wildlife and fisheries”. Increasedflooding, which was partiallycaused by the project, claimedmore than 300 lives in 2003.

Bank management hasaccepted that some mistakeswere made but ultimately assertsthat the “Bank was diligent in theapplication of its policies andprocedures”. Affected communi-ties, and NGOs ActionAidPakistan and International RiversNetwork (IRN), have requestedthat the Bank pay reparations toaddress the grievances of theaffected people.

In the meantime, the Bank’smost recent Country AssistanceStrategy for Pakistan revealsplans to increase lending for thecountry’s water sector ten-foldduring the 2006-09 period and toinvest in new, contentious largedam projects.

Laos: inadequate compensation

During a June visit to the projectsite, staff members from IRN wit-nessed numerous concerns relat-ing to the Nam Theun 2 dam (seeUpdates 45,48). IRN observersfound that provisional cash com-pensation provided to affectedcommunities for loss of land, rice

fields and common propertyresources has been wholly inade-quate to compensate for lostproduction. In addition, manyresettled villagers are currentlyliving in temporary housing andsuffering water shortagesbecause boreholes have not yetbeen dug. Other concernsinclude:• no clear management plan for

logging operations;• damage to fish stocks in the

reservoir area and downstream;• excessive dust in roadside villages;• threats to two nearby national

biodiversity conservation areas; and• delays in the release of studies

relating to social and environmentalaspects of the project.

IRN also discovered that the Laonational hydropower policy, enactedin June 2005 and a precondition forWorld Bank support, is not beingproperly implemented. The policyincludes requirements for a fullenvironmental impact assessmentand management plan, and compensation for all those affected.

Despite this, Ian Porter, WorldBank director for South East Asia,expressed satisfaction with theoverall progress of the project, onrelease of the latest semi-annualupdate. The dam is to begin operations end 2009.

Corruption and conflict

In October Juan Jose Daboub,World Bank managing director,stated that the Bank is workingwith the Ugandan government toobtain technical assistance for thecontentious Bujagali hydropowerplant (see Updates 28, 47), forwhich it removed its support in2003 following a corruptioninvestigation and the withdrawalof the main sponsor, US-basedAES Corporation. The WorldBank is also considering providing$200 million for revamping theInga hydropower station in theDemocratic Republic of Congo(DRC) by the end of the year.Much of the electricity would beexported to South Africa, despitethe lack of energy access in theDRC, still reeling from years ofcivil conflict.

Panel findings on NDP

IRN trip report to Lao PDR

ActionAid Pakistan

At this year’s World Bank/IMF annual meetings in Singapore, 27 accreditedcivil society representatives were blacklisted by the country’s authorities(see page 3). Many more were detained and even deported. Such eventsdemonstrate why the Bretton Woods Project - networker, information-provider and watchdog on a UK, European and international level - has acritical role to play. Our work is read by over 10,000 activists, journalists,officials and researchers worldwide.

Our largest foundation supporter has been forced to cut its backing ofthe Project by 20 per cent in the next period. Therefore, we need your helpto provide the same high-quality research and analysis. We know youvalue our work - we need your support to be able to continue it.

For credit card donations or to set up a direct debit, please go to our website:www.brettonwoodsproject.org/donate

For charitable purposes BWP is hosted by ActionAid UK.To donate by cheque please enclose a cheque/postal order made payableto ‘ActionAid supporter payments - Bretton Woods Project’ and return to:ActionAid FREEPOST BS4868 Chard Somerset TA20 1BR

We would like to send our thanks to all the readers who took time out togive us feedback on the Bretton Woods Update. Congratulations go to thewinners of our prize draw. The copies of The Globalizers by Ngaire Woodswere won by Elena Sisti (Italy), Dominic Kemps (UK), Stephen Nkem Asek(Cameroon), Cassandra Goldie (Australia) and Benjamin Agyemang (UK).The copies of New Development Economics edited by Ben Fine and Jomo KSwere sent to Gertrude Eigelsreiter-Jashari (Austria), Tosca Bruno-vanVijfeijken (USA), Fabien Lefrancois (El Salvador/France), Ruel Macaranas(Philippines) and Dragan Nastic (UK). Finally, The World Bank andGovernance edited by Diane Stone and Chris Wright, was won by OwenEspley (Netherlands), Ray Bjornosson (USA), Xavier Leus (Switzerland/USA),S. W. K. J. Samaranayake (Sri Lanka) and Arif Zulfiquar (USA). We hope toupdate you in more detail on the results of the survey in the next issue.

Continuing a much-heralded tradition at the Bretton Woods Project, the firstissue of 2007 will feature ‘Bankspeak of the year’ - the most incomprehensibleuse of words in a Bank or Fund document or speech. Also, we will presentyour list of recommended resources - the best of books, reports and articleswritten about the work of the Bank and Fund in 2006. Suggestions fromreaders for both features are very welcome.

www.brettonwoodsproject.org/bankspeak2005www.brettonwoodsproject.org/resources49Send your suggestions to bankspeak@brettonwoodsproject.org

High-risk water infrastructure at any costBretton Woods Projectfaces drop in support

Update survey prize winners

Best Bankspeak and resources from 2006

www.worldbank.org/inspec-tionpanel

www.irn.org/

www.actionaid.org/pak-istan/1782_5_3902.html