Resources

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A Bank for the Future - Maximising public investment in a low-carbon economy

July 2010

This report, commissioned by WDM and PLATFORM and written by former PriceWaterhouse Coopers consultant James Leaton, shows how we could create 50,000 green jobs by transforming the publicly-owned Royal Bank of Scotland into a powerful Green Investment Bank.

WDM and PLATFORM have been campaigning against RBS's socially and environmentally disastrous investments, particularly their funding of destructive tar sands mining. But by following the recommendations of the report, the bank could become a force for social and environmental good.

Climate and energy
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The Great Hunger Lottery - How banking speculation causes food crises

July 2010

In The Great Hunger Lottery, the World Development Movement has compiled extensive evidence establishing the role of food commodity derivatives in destabilising and driving up food prices around the world. This in turn, has led to food prices becoming unaffordable for low-income families around the world, particularly in developing countries highly reliant on food imports.

Food

One size for all: A study of IMF and World Bank Poverty Reduction Strategies

September 2005

In recent years the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank have adopted new ways of working and new rhetoric on ‘country ownership’ and ‘participation’. At the start of the 1980s, the two institutions began to make their loans and aid conditional on implementing ‘structural adjustment’ policies. The set of structural adjustment conditions, commonly referred to as the ‘Washington Consensus’, have been widely criticised both for undermining national political processes and causing widespread social and economic damage.

General

Zambia: Condemned to debt

April 2004

How the IMF and World Bank have undermined development

General

Treacherous conditions

May 2003

How IMF and World Bank policies tied to debt relief are undermining development

General

States of Unrest III

April 2003

This report documents protests in developing countries in 2002. The first States of Unrest report was released in September 2000. It charted protests between the WTO Ministerial in Seattle, in November 1999, and the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Annual Meetings in Prague, in September 2000. States of Unrest II was published in April 2002, charting protests during 2001.

General

Structural damage - The causes and consequences of Malawi’s food crisis

October 2002

There is a common perception that the food crisis in Malawi has been caused by the floods that ruined the planting season in 2001, or by widespread government corruption and mismanagement. These undoubtedly have contributed to the crisis. But there is another cause, which has been even more significant – inappropriate policies of donor agencies, led by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Food

States of Unrest II

April 2002

This report documents protests in developing countries in 2001. The first States of Unrest report was released in September 2000. It charted protests between the WTO Ministerial in Seattle, in November 1999, and the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Annual Meetings in Prague, in September 2000.

This report was followed by States of Unrest III.

General

States of Unrest: Resistance to IMF policies in poor countries

September 2000

Since Seattle 1999, the media has heralded the dawn of a new movement in Europe and America, epitomised by protests aimed at the WTO, IMF and the World Bank.
However, this 'new movement', portrayed by the media as students and anarchists from the rich and prosperous global north, is just the tip of the iceberg. In the global south, a far deeper and wide-ranging movement has been developing for years, largely ignored by the media.

General

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