World Bank

Sub-Saharan Africa’s Economic Outlook 2025: Navigating Uncertainty and Aligning Policy for Sustainable Recovery

The IMF’s April 2025 Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa presents a clear warning: regional growth is slowing, debt pressures are mounting, and donor assistance is declining. Yet the report outlines critical opportunities particularly in domestic revenue mobilization, structural reform, and private sector activation that can shape a more resilient …

Development doubts

International financial institutions (ifis) avoid investing in troubled states. It just doesn't make good business sense. Then why do ifis such as the Asian Development Bank (adb) and the World Bank feel attracted to India's northeast? Does the vacuum of governance in some of these states suit the ifis or …

Walking down to work, how safe is it?

In William Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors, Antipholus asks Syracuse, "Will you walk with me about the town, and then go to my inn and dine with me?' The experience is very likely to be a harrowing one if you happen to be in an Indian city

Banking on nothing

The World Bank has come up with a Global Strategy and Booster Program for the years 2005-2010 to control malaria. But Amir Attaran of the Institute of Population Health and Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, Canada, has argued in The Lancet that the bank does not have the expertise …

Dubious record

The history of the Sardar Sarovar dam on the river Narmada is the history of successive governments finding surreptitious ways to drown reasonable debate in the face of incontrovertible facts. Today, evidence in the audit reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) points to the economic insolvency that plagues …

Suspect diagnosis

A new report by the World Bank (wb) has come down heavily on the present legal framework and policies of the Indian forest sector. The report

Get the World Bank in

the Indian government is all set to streamline its drug procurement process to remove corruption in tendering. In the past, it has

`Act before it is too late'

Interview with Anil Naidoo, Director of the Blue Planet Project, which is fighting against the commercialisation of water. Anil Naidoo was a key organiser of the alternative forum as a counter to the World Water Forum in Mexico City recently. He is Director of the Blue Planet Project, an international …

Thirst for profit

2001: THE old man shuffled his feet, acutely embarrassed. No matter which part of India you're in, the first thing you do is offer your guests a glass of water. And this was one part of Nallamada in Andhra Pradesh blessed with that element. Things had changed, though. "Please don't …

South Asia

flu attacks: Tests have confirmed bird flu cases in Pakistan and Afghanistan, reports the BBC. The virus has been detected in chickens in two farms in north-west Pakistan which have now been sealed off, officials said. The presence of the strain was confirmed by the European Union's Reference Laboratory for …

Dipping levels

the water level of Africa's Lake Victoria, the second largest freshwater lake in the world, has dropped dramatically by two metres in the last 45 years. Though drought has been largely blamed for this dip, a closer look by environmentalists and politicians in Uganda points to a new culprit: the …

Boon or bane?

the World Bank (wb) has suspended the grant of us $150 million loan to the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (mutp) to express its dissatisfaction over mutp 's resettlement package. But the Maharashtra government seems unfazed by the funding body's move. The bone of contention is the resettlement of over 2,500 …

Old whine in new bottle

The International Finance Corporation (ifc), the private sector arm of the World Bank, has recently adopted a new set of regulations for companies borrowing from it. The new rules, called the policy and performance standards on environmental and social sustainability, add to the existing framework of the Equator Principles, (see …

Work matters

The question whether in situ housing improvements should be made in slums, or slum-dwellers should be relocated, is an old one. It is also fraught with politics and controversy (see

Not taking a stand

Acontroversial audit report of the Office of the Compliance Advisor, an internal audit body of the World Bank (wb), has finally been released after being cleared by the B ank's president Paul Wolfowitz. The report looked into the wb- backed Dikulushi copper and silver mining project in the Democratic Republic …

Vault the truth

After a delay of nine months, finally the Vaughn Report, which was commissioned by the World Bank as a guide to modernise the bank's whistleblower protection policies was publicised by the Government Accountability Project (gap), us. Since the report's release, the World Bank has pointedly refused to consult staff on …

Vault the truth

After a delay of nine months, finally the Vaughn Report, which was commissioned by the World Bank as a guide to modernise the bank's whistleblower protection policies was publicised by the Government Accountability Project (gap), us. Since the report's release, the World Bank has pointedly refused to consult staff on …

Two neighbours and a treaty: Baglihar project in hot waters

Pakistan has objected to several features of the Baglihar hydropower project on the Chenab river in Jammu and Kashmir contending that it violates the Indus Water Treaty. The World Bank, which brokered the IWT, has appointed a neutral expert to resolve the differences. Diplomats fear these developments might cast a …

Frozen account

The World Bank (wb) has frozen Chad's oil pipeline account claiming that it violated a loan agreement. The wb was angry with a new law giving the Chad government more access to profits from the pipeline, which takes oil to Cameroon for exports. Some of the profits are to be …

Debt end

Large amounts of foreign debt are an enormous burden for many low and middle-income countries in the global South. Funds that nations could be allocating to social expenditures such as education, healthcare, water, and sanitation are being diverted to repay foreign debt. In 2003, Senegal, Malawi and eight other African …

Who s hitting jackpot?

It's not every day that an innocuous email from a geophysicist leads you to a prime ministerial residence that is big time real estate. And we aren't talking 7 Race Course Road. I had to check out the villages of Prini and Jagatsukh near Manali, Himachal Pradesh, which had complaints …

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