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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

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...

The World Bank's Bad Business in Uruguay

In the years following the 2001 economic crisis, the World Bank has used Uruguay as the poster child of an economy that has become stronger after following its development model. The Bank pushed for financial sector changes, including developing capital markets (the buying and selling of long term debt and other mechanisms) to improve the investment climate in the country. At the 88th position out of 189 countries, Uruguay enjoys a “good” score...

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The World Bank's Bad Business in Uganda

Uganda was the second best performing economy of the East African Community (EAC) in the 2013 Doing Business report, and the country is a good ally for the World Bank in the region. It was recently chosen as one of the pilot countries to test the Bank’s new Benchmarking the Business of Agriculture (BBA) indicator, a project that aims to “help policy makers strengthen agribusiness globally, enabling the farm sector to participate more fully in...

The World Bank's Bad Business in Laos

Laos, officially the Lao People’s Democratic Republic is a mountainous, land-locked state, identified as one of the world’s Least Developed Countries (LDC). Since the year 2000, Laos has undergone an unprecedented transformation in rural land use, as government reforms facilitate growth through market-based economic strategies. The goal of the Laotian government is to graduate from LDC country status by 2020.

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Blog

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...

Image: Highland scene in Amhara, Ethiopia with US dollars overlaid. © The Oakland Institute

A Response to Klaus Deininger’s Blog Post The World Bank’s Land and Poverty Conference: 20 years on

Friday, March 22, 2019 Frederic Mousseau

Dear Mr. Deininger, Your recent blog post surprisingly contradicts the prescriptions and policy guidance that your organization, the World Bank, gives to governments around the world, particularly in Africa. You stress the need “to base interventions on land, on solid empirical evidence rather than ideology.” Yet, when it comes to land and agriculture, the World Bank clearly follows an ideological blueprint, which focuses on...

Construction in Pekanbaru, capital of Riau province in Sumatra, Indonesia. Photo: Flore de Preneuf / World Bank (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Collapsed Buildings & Lost Lives in Palu: The Tragic Cost of the World Bank’s #DoingBusiness Rankings

Tuesday, October 2, 2018 Elizabeth Fraser

In reading about the tragedy, one detail in particular has haunted me: reports of thousands of buildings collapsing and trapping those inside. This hard fact has stayed with me not just because the thought of being trapped in a collapsed building is absolutely terrifying, but because it unveils the dire impact of the World Bank's pro-business agenda.

Mariam Sow delivering the Declaration of Small Scale Food Producers' and Civil Society Organizations

A New Milestone Towards a Sustainable Food System – FAO Agroecology Symposium

Tuesday, May 8, 2018 Flora Sonkin

ROME, Italy — April 3-5, 2018, hallways of the FAO (UN Food and Agriculture Organization) buzzed with over 700 representatives from government, civil society, private sector, and the UN agencies at the second agroecology symposium. Picking up momentum from the first symposium in 2014, and the subsequent regional meetings held in Latin America , Sub-Saharan Africa , Europe, Central Asia and Asia and the Pacific , the three-day Symposium...

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Press Releases and Public Statements

The World Bank’s Private Sector Arm — The IFC — Must Stop Financing Industrial Agriculture

Development Banks Have No Business Financing Agribusiness

A Landmark Victory: World Bank Finally Ends Its Destructive and Corrupt Doing Business Report

Ceasing Publication of the Doing Business Report

World Bank Suspends Doing Business Report

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Media

Kicking Native People Off Their Land Is a Horrible Way to Save the Planet

NY Times

Agriculteurs français : les dindons du soutien agricole à l’Ukraine

Le Journal du Dimanche

The Decline Of Nature In Papua New Guinea: An Analysis Of Land Reforms In PNG

Eurasia Review

World Bank Abdicates its Responsibility to Human Rights in Tanzania

The Chanzo

World Bank acts on abuse claims in Tanzania park project

The Citizen

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