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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

A Death Knell for the EBA, brief cover

A Death Knell for the EBA: Why the World Bank Must End its Ranking Programs Now

A new brief by the Oakland Institute urges member states to deliver the final blow to the Bank’s ranking programs — the Doing Business Report (DBR) and Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA). The DBR and EBA face a growing crisis of legitimacy and confidence. Since last year, two anchor donors have ceased funding the EBA; in January 2018, former World Bank Chief Economist Paul Romer resigned after exposing politically motivated...

Unjust Enrichment: How the IFC Profits from Land Grabbing in Africa

Unjust Enrichment: How the IFC Profits from Land Grabbing in Africa

Unjust Enrichment: How the IFC Profits from Land Grabbing in Africa , released by Inclusive Development International, Bank Information Center, Accountability Counsel, Urgewald and the Oakland Institute shows how the World Bank Group has indirectly financed some of Africa’s most notorious land grabs. The World Bank’s private-sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), is enabling and profiting from these projects by...

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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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.

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Blog

Sigiriya fortress in the northern Matale District. Photo: The Oakland Institute

Land Privatization: Why Sri Lanka Must Reject the MCC Compact

Monday, August 17, 2020 Janhavi Mittal

A recent report by the Oakland Institute examines the MCC compact with Sri Lanka and raises alarm over the irreversible consequences of embarking on land privatization – when most of the land is public in the country.

Kenyan tea farm. Photo: Samuel Phillips

World Bank's COVID-19 Assistance to Kenya Benefits Multinational Agribusiness and Agrochemical Firms

Thursday, July 2, 2020 Frederic Mousseau and Andy Currier

Despite the unprecedented nature of the Covid-19 pandemic, the World Bank continues to drive "private sector solutions to development" under the faulty assumption that catering to multinational companies will trickle down and benefit all.

Community volunteers from Chllla Khadar. Image: Vikram Singh/ Basti Suraksha Manch

Conditional Loans, Uncontrolled Misery: Doing Business in India in the Times of Corona

Monday, June 22, 2020 Janhavi Mittal

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought up the specter of the Indian partition as the country continues to witness the misery of large–scale human migration on foot and in deathly trains . However, the divide that emerges is not of two nation states but a widening gulf between India’s elite and millions of its second-class citizens — poor, toiling migrant workers. In the midst of this crisis, at a press conference on May 17, 2020,...

A seed fair in Democratic Republic of Congo. Credit: Alexa Reynolds, ACF DR Congo

Emperor Has No New Clothes

Thursday, January 30, 2020

The EBA program was not created to help farmers. The Bank's claims to support farmers via the EBA is inherently contradictory to the own raison d'être of the program. The best way for the World Bank to assist farmers would be to disband the EBA program altogether.

Farmers prepare compost at a training at the Manor House Agricultural Center in Kenya. Copyright: MHAC

We Need Bold, Ambitious Action to Address the Climate Crisis – and Agroecology is the Answer

Tuesday, August 13, 2019 Elizabeth Fraser

With the clock ticking and the window for change narrowing each day that goes by, it is clear that we need a bold and ambitious campaign to invest in agroecological solutions that build robust, diverse, and resilient food systems in communities across the planet. The good news is, just as is evident in the Himalayas, such bold action won't just help us address climate change--it also has the potential to address systemic issues like poverty and...

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Press Releases and Public Statements

World Bank Suspends Doing Business Report

Driving Dispossession: Media Coverage

Send a Message to US Congress: Stop Driving Global Land Privatization

New Report Warns of an Unprecedented Wave of Land Privatization

Narmada: Statement of Solidarity

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Media

Why Governments should Reject Land Commodification Efforts Orchestrated by the World Bank and the United States

World Rainforest Movement

Is Development for the World Bank Mainly Doing Business?

IPS

Think Tank Decries Global Push to Privatise Land

Ceylon Today

World Bank Must Permanently End Ideologically Driven Doing Business Rankings

Common Dreams

Sri Lanka & MCC: US Think Tank Alerts 'Land Grab' by Private Sector

Asian Tribune

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Documentation and Contracts

MIGA: Bolstering Private Equity Investment

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