By Matthew O. Berger
WASHINGTON, Jun 30 (IPS) – Liberian efforts to enact economic and governance reforms came to a head Tuesday as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund announced they were supporting 4.6 billion dollars of debt relief for the West African country.

The news came as part of a spate of debt relief decisions [...]

By Julio Godoy
BERLIN, Jun 30 (IPS) – The latest UNCTAD report on science and technology repeats previous calls for a "green revolution" in African agriculture but contains no mention of the real and present dangers that the international trade and financial framework presents to African farmers.

In the report, titled "Enhancing Food Security in Africa Through [...]

By Daniela Estrada* – Tierramérica

Cape Town's Green Point Stadium, one of the venues for the 2010 football championship. / Public domain

PUNTA DEL ESTE, Uruguay, Jun 2 (IPS) – South Africa, where the FIFA Football World Cup is to kick off Jun. 11, has introduced cleaner transportation, while Brazil is planning ecological stadiums for the [...]

By Hilaire Avril

Sebastien Fourmy: "The fundamentals of decision-making at the Bank have been carefully preserved." / Oxfam-Agir Ici

PARIS, May 17 (IPS) – The World Bank has described its recent increase of 3.13 percent in the voting power of emerging economies as a reform "to enhance voice and participation of developing and transition countries". But [...]

By Matthew Berger and Davison Makanga
WASHINGTON/JOHANNESBURG, Apr 10 (IPS) – As the World Bank approved a controversial three-billion-dollar loan for a coal-fired power plant in South Africa Thursday, both the details and the broader impacts of the loan continue to be criticised by community and environmental groups.

The U.S., Britain, Netherlands, Norway and Italy abstained from [...]

By Matthew Berger
WASHINGTON, Mar 29 (IPS) – Decision-makers around the world are in a period of transition when it comes to the future of supplying energy. Even if everyone agrees that a low carbon future is the inevitable solution, there is nothing close to consensus regarding which path to take.

Increasingly, industrial and developing countries find [...]

Hilaire Avril interviews XAVIER HAREL, author of "The Great Escape: The Real Scandal of Tax Havens"

Xavier Harel: "Hairdryers are being sold to Nigeria for 3,800 dollars apiece or cassette players for 1,400 dollars" / Copyright: DR

PARIS, Mar 29 (IPS) – Between 30 and 40 percent of taxes that should be collected by developing countries [...]

By Mohammed A. Salih
WASHINGTON, Mar 16 (IPS) – Poverty is on the rise in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and various forms of corruption threaten to undermine the impact of investments made to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the continent, said the World Bank in a report released Monday on Africa's development.

The report says the [...]

By Zenzele Ndebele

There is deep distrust of an IMF & World Bank designed programme that could offer Zimbabwe debt relief. / ZIMCODD

BULAWAYO, Feb 9 (IPS) – Faced with nearly six billion dollars of external debt, Zimbabwe's national unity government is considering applying for Highly Indebted Poor Country status.

According to the prime minister's office, the [...]

By Joshua Kyalimpa

Rift Valley Railway train: after several false starts, there is new impetus to rebuilding an East African railway network. / Frederick Onyango/Wikimedia

KAMPALA, Jan 9 (IPS) – The collapse of the Uganda Railway Corporation 15 years ago opened up lucrative opportunities for privately-owned road transporters. But the high cost of maintaining the highways [...]

By Marina Penderis
JOHANNESBURG, Oct 29 (IPS) – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) may be performing better during the current economic crisis than during the Asian crisis of the late 1990s, but it still has "a long way to go".

This is the opinion of economist Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research [...]

By Stephanie Nieuwoudt
CAPE TOWN, Oct 28 (IPS) – Concerns abound about a nine billion dollar Chinese investment in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, especially around environmental consequences and transparency. And, on the Chinese side, investors complain not only about the lack of security in the DRC but about their own government not providing enough [...]

By Francis Kokutse
STOCKHOLM, Oct 26 (IPS) – It seems that, once again, Africa and the rest of the developing world have been short-changed, given the broken promises in the wake of the global economic implosion.

The developed world has not acted in good faith towards with Africa and other developing regions in the aftermath of the [...]

By Stanley Kwenda
HARARE, Oct 16 (IPS) – Agriculture used to be Zimbabwe’s economic mainstay but it has been on the decline since 2000 when the ZANU-PF government embarked on a so-called land reform programme that resulted in about 4,000 productive white farmers losing their farms, many to members of the politically connected elite.

The programme is [...]

By Eli Clifton
WASHINGTON, Oct 15 (IPS) – The International Monetary Fund is on the defensive over a recent study which charged that a majority of countries with IMF agreements have been subjected to pro-cyclical fiscal or monetary policies during the global economic downturn, exacerbating the effects of the recession and harming some of the world's [...]