World Bank Group

Reports, briefs, and media around the activities of the World Bank. You can also learn more about the Our Land Our Business campaign by clicking here.

Publications

Unaccountable & Complicit: The World Bank Finances Evictions & Human Rights Abuses In Tanzania

Unaccountable & Complicit: The World Bank Finances Evictions & Human Rights Abuses in Tanzania denounces the World Bank’s role in the violent conservation activities underway around the Ruaha National Park (RUNAPA).

Driving Dispossession

Driving Dispossession: The Global Push to “Unlock the Economic Potential of Land,” sounds the alarm on the unprecedented wave of privatization of natural resources that is underway around the world. Through six case studies — Ukraine, Zambia, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, and Brazil — the report details the myriad ways by which governments — willingly or under the pressure of financial institutions and...

The Highest Bidder Takes It All: The World Bank’s Scheme to Privatize the Commons

The Highest Bidder Takes It All: The World Bank’s Scheme to Privatize the Commons details how the Bank’s prescribes reforms, via a new land indicator in the Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA) project, promotes large-scale land acquisitions and the expansion of agribusinesses in the developing world. This new indicator is now a key element of the larger EBA project, which dictates pro-business reforms that governments should...

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Vendre les terres au plus offrant: Le plan de la Banque mondiale pour privatiser les biens communs

Indonesia: The World Bank's Failed East Asian Miracle

Indonesia: The World Bank's Failed East Asian Miracle details how Bank-backed policy reforms have led to the displacement, criminalization, and even murder of smallholder farmers and indigenous defenders to make way for mega-agricultural projects. While Indonesia's rapidly expanding palm oil sector has been heralded as a boon for the economy, its price tag includes massive deforestation, widespread loss of indigenous land, rapidly increasing...

The Great Ventriloquist Act: The World Bank's Bad Business in India

The Great Ventriloquist Act: The World Bank's Bad Business in India exposes how India's one-track focus on improving its DBR has allowed massive environmental, labor, and human rights abuses to take place. Most appalling is the case of Vedanta Resources Plc, a company that benefitted from the removal of environmental safeguards and was able to operate a damaging copper smelter within the city limits of Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu--a mere 8.4 miles...

Blog

Quand les institutions européennes sacrifient les paysans au profit de grands groupes agroindustriels

Monday, February 19, 2024 Frederic Mousseau, Maya Tsingos

Manifestations d'agriculteurs à Bruxelles. Source : Confédération paysanne Une vague de manifestations d'agriculteurs se répand à travers l'Europe depuis janvier 2024. Dans plusieurs pays, dont la France, la Belgique, la Grèce, l'Italie, l'Espagne, la Pologne, l'Allemagne et les Pays-Bas, les paysans protestent contre la concurrence déloyale, les charges fiscales, la réglementation excessive et un manque général de reconnaissance et de soutien...

When European Institutions Sacrifice Farmers for Corporate Profit

Monday, February 26, 2024 Frederic Mousseau, Maya Tsingos

Farmers protests in Brussels. Source: Confédération paysanne A wave of farmer protests has spread across Europe since January 2024. In several countries, including France, Belgium, Greece, Italy, Spain, Poland, Germany, and the Netherlands, farmers have mobilized through demonstrations and roadblocks to protest unfair competition, tax burdens, excessive regulation, and an overall lack of recognition and support. One example of the difficulties...

Bankrolling the Carbon Cowboys: The World Bank's Carbon Insurance Plans

Friday, July 28, 2023 Eve Devillers

If the plans move forward, MIGA would not only be insuring a false climate solution that has spectacularly failed to reduce emissions over the past 20 years, but it would also provide insurance against host countries attempting to regulate the carbon trade.

Be Ready to Further Corporate Exploitation - World Bank Resuscitates Defunct Doing Business Project

Thursday, July 13, 2023 Frederic Mousseau

World Bank's latest Business Ready or B-Ready project, announced on May 1, 2023, resuscitates the defunct Doing Business Report (DBR). Since its creation two decades ago, the DBR has been used to drive policy and regulatory changes that favor businesses and corporations at the expense of the people and the planet.

Fuel on the Fire: The World Bank’s Complicity in Duterte’s War on Farmers in the Philippines

Tuesday, January 26, 2021 Andy Currier

The government’s development strategy prioritizes a "modern" export-oriented commercial agriculture system that directly threatens farmers' and Indigenous Peoples' right to land and life. Those who organize and resist are killed or imprisoned with impunity in President Rodrigo Duterte's Philippines.