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

Down on the Seed Cover: Enabling the Business of Agriculture Enables Corporate Takeover

Down on the Seed: The World Bank Enables Corporate Takeover of Seeds

Only six multinationals currently control over two-thirds of the industrial seed sales, and pending agro-industry mergers stand to further consolidate this oligopoly . Further market expansion for these corporations depends on the shrinking of farmer-managed seed systems, which currently provide 80 to 90 percent of the seed supply in developing countries through on-farm seed saving and farmer-to-farmer seed exchange. Enabling the Business of...

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Ruée sur les Semences
The Unholy Alliance Report Cover

The Unholy Alliance, Five Western Donors Shape a Pro-Corporate Agenda for African Agriculture

The Unholy Alliance, Five Western Donors Shape a Pro-Corporate Agenda for African Agriculture, exposes how a coalition of four donor countries and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is shaping a pro-business environment in the agricultural sector of developing countries, especially in Africa.

Moral Bankruptcy: World Bank Reinvents Tainted Aid Program for Ethiopia

Moral Bankruptcy: World Bank Reinvents Tainted Aid Program for Ethiopia

Moral Bankruptcy: World Bank Reinvents Tainted Aid Program for Ethiopia exposes the shameful reinvention of one of the Bank’s most problematic programs in Ethiopia. The report also reveals that the US Treasury violated congressional law when voting in favor of this program.

Peru, The Poster Child For the World Bank in Latin America

Peru has remained in the good grace of the World Bank. In 2015, it ranks 35th in the Bank’s Doing Business survey, with the second highest score in Latin America, indicating that the government has “created a regulatory environment conducive to business.” In 2008, Peru requested help from the Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) advisory services for the design of a new reform agenda launched in 2009. As a result, the World Bank’s...

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Perú: el buen alumno del Banco Mundial en América Latina

New Name, Same Game: World Bank's Enabling the Business of Agriculture

In March 2014, the multicontinental campaign Our Land Our Business was launched to demand the end of the World Bank’s Doing Business project and Benchmarking the Business of Agriculture (BBA) initiative, recently renamed Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA). Bringing together over 260 NGOs, farmer groups, grassroots organizations, and trade unions, Our Land Our Business condemned the World Bank business indicators, which rank countries on...

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Blog

Tractor in Ethiopia

Development Gone Wrong

Saturday, March 31, 2018 Anuradha Mittal

“I am not afraid of being arrested. I am afraid of being tortured.” These words from Pastor Omot Agwa , an Anuak land rights defender, are a poignant reminder of “development” gone wrong in Ethiopia. The agricultural sector, seen as the driver for development by the Ethiopian government, has been used to lure foreign investments for agribusiness ventures—large industrial plantations as those set up by Saudi Star and...

Un Teatro Caupolican lleno esperó a Michelle Bachelet para la proclamación del Partido Socialista y Partido por la Democracia, como su pre candidata presidencial.

The World Bank's Fetish For Ranking: The Case Of Doing Business Rank For Chile

Wednesday, February 21, 2018 Paola Langer

On January 12, 2018, World Bank Chief Economist Paul Romer revealed that the Bank’s Doing Business Ranking may have been deliberately skewed and politically manipulated, disfavoring Chile’s ranking under its outgoing socialist president, Michelle Bachelet. Following these revelations, he resigned on January 24.

The World Bank’s Land Conference: Pro-Poor Bluff to Serve Neo-Colonialism

Monday, March 20, 2017 Alice Martin-Prével

This March 20, 2017, the World Bank’s 18th Annual Land and Poverty Conference begins, featuring a session where Bank specialists will deliver their assessment on the “quality” of land regulations globally. In particular, the Bank’s staff will comment on the implementation and findings of the Doing Business (DB) and the Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA), two projects that rank countries’ regulatory...

The Oakland Institute's new report Down On the Seed, the World Bank Enables Corporate Takeover of Seeds, exposes that the World Bank's Enabling the Business of Agriculture index reinforces the stranglehold of agrochemical companies and Western nations.

Banking on Seeds: World Bank Sides with Agribusinesses Against Farmers' Rights to Seeds

Tuesday, January 31, 2017 Alice Martin-Prével

Around the world, farmers’ rights to seeds are imperilled by industry-pushed reforms to curtail the freedom to save, reuse, exchange, and sell seeds. This is because, for the industrial seed market to grow, more farmers must rely on seeds bought from corporations, rather than seeds saved from previous harvests...

World Bank Doing Business 2017 Report Cover

Neoliberalism for All: The World Bank’s Doing Business 2017

Thursday, November 3, 2016 Alice Martin-Prével, Frederic Mousseau

“Equal Opportunity for All” subtitles the annual Doing Business report released last month by the World Bank. The choice is rather cynical for an instrument that has become a key driver of the neoliberal reforms promoted by the Bank around the world...

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Press Releases and Public Statements

An Open Letter to the World Bank on its 20th Land and Poverty Conference

World Bank's New Scheme to Privatize Land in the Developing World Exposed

Alerte sur le plan de la Banque mondiale de privatisation des terres dans les pays en développement

The Toll of Doing Business on People and the Environment in India

The Toll of Doing Business on People and the Environment in Indonesia

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Media

World Bank Dispossessing Rural Poor

IPS

The highest bidder takes it all: The World Bank’s new scheme to privatise land in the Global South

The Bretton Woods Project

Un Nouvel Indicateur Foncier Au Service De La Logique Néolibérale

SOS FAIM

Diseñar políticas alimentarias que pongan en el centro a los pequeños agricultores, pastores y pueblos indígenas para proteger la tierra y la seguridad alimentaria

Observatorio del Derecho a la Alimentación de España

Trapped in the rubble, the Palu earthquake shows the cost of the World Bank’s pro-business agenda in Indonesia

Lifegate

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