The World Bank and Other Financial Institutions
“Poverty alleviation,” “sustainability,” “prosperity” and "development" are key words in the public relations materials of the World Bank, its private arm, the International Financial Corporation (IFC), and other development finance agencies. In reality, the policies, programmes and projects promoted by these institutions have time and again caused more poverty, violence and forest destruction.
WRM spoke with close allies from Brazil, Gabon, India, Mexico and Mozambique, to hear from them and learn about their understandings of development.
In June 2019, a report from the AfDB and WWF Kenya made a call to development-funding agencies, mainly from Europe, and the World Bank, to provide aid money to a new Fund for financing 100,000 hectares of (new) industrial tree plantations, to support the potential development of 500,000 hectares, in Eastern and Southern Africa.
When the Chure region was declared a Protected Area, the rights of thousands of Community Forest Groups were undermined. They keep resisting despite the overall violence and the accepted project from the Green Climate Fund.
