US Congress opposes World Bank plan to weaken environmental and social protections, seeks transparency about “beneficial owners” of shell companies
(Washington, DC) – After withering global criticism of the World Bank’s proposal to weaken longstanding environmental and social protections, or safeguards, the US Congress has weighed in forcefully. The 2016 Consolidated Appropriations Act, which was adopted on Friday, instructs the US Treasury department to oppose any World Bank policy that provides less protection than the […]
International organizations launch petition in support of jailed Ethiopian activists as court date approaches
(Reading, UK) – Five international organizations—Anywaa Survival Organisation (ASO), GRAIN, Inclusive Development International, Bread for All, and Oakland Institute—have launched a petition asking supporters to denounce the Ethiopian government and its financial backers for the arrest of three Ethiopian food, land, and indigenous rights activists. The three activists, who face terrorism charges for attempting to […]
Ethiopia: World Bank Translator, Activists Face Trial – Activists Heading for Food Workshop Charged with Terrorism
(Nairobi) – Ethiopian authorities should immediately drop all charges and release a former World Bank translator and two other local activists charged under Ethiopia’s repressive anti-terrorism law after trying to attend a workshop on food security in Nairobi, six international development and human rights groups said today. On September 7, 2015, the authorities charged Pastor […]
Joint Letter to the World Bank: Fulfill Your Commitment to Upholding the Right to Remedy for Boeung Kak Lake Community
(Phnom Penh) – Today 15 Cambodian civil society organizations (CSOs) and major CSO networks, supported by Inclusive Development International and 26 other international CSO partners, wrote to the World Bank demanding that the Bank make good on its public commitment to condition new lending to Cambodia on the provision of redress for the thousands of families […]
World Bank: Dangerous Rollback in Environmental and Social Protections
(Washington, DC) The World Bank has released new draft safeguard policies that will vastly weaken protections for affected communities and the environment at the same time as the bank intends to finance more high-risk projects, 19 organizations said today. The proposed new Environmental and Social Safeguards Framework pointedly contradicts World Bank President Jim Yong Kim’s commitment […]
Evicted and Abandoned: How the World Bank breaks its promise to protect the poor — ICIJ
An explosive year-long investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has revealed that, since 2004, an estimated 3,350,449 people were forced from their homes, deprived of their land or had their livelihoods damaged because they lived in the path of a World Bank project. Read the story: Evicted and Abandoned: How the World Bank […]
World Bank: Address systematic resettlement failure
(Washington, DC) – The World Bank’s action plan responding to an internal review on the bank’s resettlement practices does not address the serious failings the review found, 85 non-governmental organizations and independent experts from 37 countries said today in a letter to the World Bank president, Jim Yong Kim. On March 4, 2015, the World […]
World Bank chief vows stronger oversight of resettlement policies, Bank’s new ‘action plan’ follows allegations of human-rights abuses
By IAN TALLEY – The WALL STREET JOURNAL (March 4, 2015) – The World Bank is bolstering its safeguards against human-rights abuses in bank-funded projects after a scathing internal review found major failures in the development institution’s oversight of land resettlements. A yearslong review of hundreds of bank-financed infrastructure and agriculture projects in the world’s poorest […]
World Bank whitewashes Ethiopia human rights scandal
The World Bank has whitewashed damning evidence of widespread human rights abuses in connection with its flagship program in Ethiopia, Inclusive Development International said today. The evidence, obtained during the course of an internal investigation, appears to have been shelved in order to exonerate the bank and one of it biggest clients of responsibility for […]
IDI submits detailed comments on involuntary resettlement and land rights to the World Bank Safeguards Review
In the fall of 2012 the World Bank began a two-year review of its safeguards policies, which are intended to ensure that its investments “do no harm” to people and the environment. Inclusive Development International has been working with civil society partners around the world to mobilize a concerted, international effort to strengthen the content and implementation of […]