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A Review of The World’s Banker, A Story of Failed States, Financial Crises, and the Wealth and Poverty of Nations by Sebastian Mallaby (Penguin Press, October 2004)In The World’s Banker, Sebastian Mallaby presents an insightful account of the World Bank during the presidency of James Wolfensohn. The author loses his cool when he discusses the role of advocacy groups that campaign against Bank projects, substituting research with polemic and a substantive debate with catchy slogans. Sebastian Mallaby’s preferred method of work is the interview. For his new book, The World’s Banker, the

Equator Principles Re–LaunchedBankTrack welcomes any initiative that enhances the social and environmental sustainability of bank financing operations. BankTrack acknowledges the improvements in the new version of the Equator Principles (EPs), such as the expansion of the Principles to cover financial advising and the lower threshold, but also believes that the EPs fail to live up to their potential. The Era of Implementation As the Equator banks have recognized, implementation is critical to the success of the Principles. Since the EP’s inception, BankTrack has consistently supported the

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz has called corruption the single most important obstacle to development and has ratcheted up the fight against graft in Bank projects. While this effort is welcome, it is being undermined by the bank’s simultaneous increase in infrastructure lending. The experience of Pakistan’s water sector shows that the bank’s self–interests facilitate rather than discourage corruption in infrastructure development. Unless the World Bank addresses upstream the corruption incentives that drive infrastructure decisions, the poor will continue to be deprived of acce

A Critique of the World Bank Paper, Clean Energy and Development: Towards an Investment FrameworkPrepared for the Development Committee Meeting Introduction At the Gleneagles G8 Summit held in July 2005, the World Bank was given a twin mandate. It was asked to propose a strategy that will facilitate a global transition to a climate–friendly, sustainable energy future, and that will support energy sector development for economic growth and poverty reduction. In response to this mandate, the World Bank just submitted a report, Clean Energy and Development: Towards an Investment Framework,

International NGO media release, March 13, 2003: An international coalition of 120 environmental organizations today called on private banks and international financial institutions not to provide any funds for the large Karahnjukar dam and aluminum smelter project in Iceland. Iceland's National Power Company and the Alcoa Corporation are expected to sign the project's power contract on March 15. If built, the Karahnjukar project will consist of nine dams, three reservoirs, a series of tunnels and river diversions, and a 690 megawatt power plant. It is only the first i

The World Bank, Dams and the Quest for Reparations The World Bank has been the largest single source of funds for large dam construction worldwide. Under its stated aim of alleviating poverty, it has promoted and funded dams that have displaced more than 10 million people from their homes and land, caused severe environmental damage, and pushed borrowers further into debt. Never hesitant to exact loan repayment in perpetuity for projects it has funded (even failed projects), the World Bank has never been forced to pay for the destruction it has caused to millions of people’s lives and th

Since World War II some 45,000 large dams have been built, generating an estimated 20 percent of the world’s electricity and providing irrigation to fields that produce some 10 percent of the world’s food. The harnessing of wild rivers has not, however, occurred without considerable human and environmental cost. Dams flood some of the most productive agricultural lands in the world. Large dams and water diversions are the primary cause of endangerment or extinction for half of the world’s fresh water fish, and changes in downstream water quality have decimated the fisheries, waterfowl an

(Published by Development Today) The Nile Basin Initiative, backed by Sweden, Denmark and Norway, proposes numerous large dams along the Nile. While there are sure to be beneficiaries of the programme, the emphasis on large hydro will heighten the region’s vulnerability to climate change, lead to widespread forced resettlement, increase foreign debt, and compound demands on an already overtapped river, while failing to help meet the energy needs of the poorest. The Nile Basin Initiative (NBI), a plan to bring development to and reduce conflict in the 10–nation Nile basin, is being

Over the millennia, life in Southern Africa was measured by the ebb and flow of the great Zambezi River. Every year the river’s waters spilled over into its vast floodplains, irrigating subsistence crops, rejuvenating vital grasslands for wildlife and livestock, depositing nutrient–rich sediments in coastal mangroves, and triggering the lifecycles of countless species of plants and animals. Low dry–season flows sustained the productivity of coastal prawn fisheries and enabled the people of the river’s basin to harvest riverine fishes. For the past 40 years, however, the pulse of the Za

Conferencia de ImprensaO Governo de Moçambique anunciou que na ultima sexta–feira, 21 de Abril, que o Banco de Importação – Exportação da China concordou em financiar a construção da proposta Barragem de Mphanda Nkuwa, avaliada em mais de dois biliões de dolares americanos. O acordo financeiro vem trazer risco á economia Mocambicana, tal como para o seu meio ambiente e povo, em benefício de grandes negocios estrangeiros. Justiça Ambiental (JA), uma organização baseada em Moçambique, tem alertado o governo para que suspenda toda actividade no projecto até que todos os estudos