World Bank

The World Bank Group has some very clear (and very good) guidelines about what makes for a successful public-private partnership where governments contract service provision like energy supply or education from private firms. Sadly, the bank has been ignoring that rule recently. And that is a sign o...

The Private Sector Window (PSW) takes resources from the World Bank’s soft lending arm, the International Development Association (IDA), and uses it to support private sector investments in poorer developing countries.This is a comparatively straightforward way for the IFC to move money, but it is h...

I’m not convinced that the IFC will manage to deliver on all of the promises it is making in order to receive the funds. And I think that congressional concerns with the IFC’s use of aid in an attempt to meet lending targets are right. So, reform should come alongside resources. 

Increasingly, Washington views international financial organizations as weapons in the global struggle for the neoliberal economic model against China’s state-led approach to development. And often, the international financial institutions are the battlefield itself, in a conflict over voting s...