World Bank

Newsletter – We Demand Accountability

April 18, 2015 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.PopularResistance.org Newsletter Banking, Climate Change, Corporatism, Corruption, Democracy, Empire, fast track, killed by police, Police abuse, Taxes, TPP, Wages, Wealth Ineqaulity, World Bank

On Tax Day, April 15, 61 year old Doug Hughes, a mailman from Florida, landed a gyrocopter on the Capitol lawn to deliver 535 letters to members of Congress in order “to spotlight corruption of Congress and to present a solution to legalized bribery.” Hughes told the Tampa Bay News that "I'd rather die in the flight than live to be 80 years old and see this country fall." He has been released on bond with home detention and returns to court on May 8th to face charges of operating an unregistered aircraft and violating restricted airspace, facing a total of four years incarceration. On Saturday, April 11, 22 year old Leo Thornton shot and killed himself in front of the Capitol. He had a sign taped to his hand that read, “Tax the 1%.” The media ignored him, some called him an extremist and did not report his "radical" message of fair taxes. Protests by individuals and groups become impactful when they ignite others to join, to mobilize in support of the call. We urge you to support protests by participating, spreading the word and mobilizing in whatever way you can.

Civil Society Asks World Bank Three Questions

April 17, 2015 Anuradha Mittal, Alnoor Ladha and Joseph Rahall, www.ourlandourbusiness.org Resist! Corporatism, Food and Agriculture, World Bank

Oakland, CA - As the World Bank prepares for its annual Spring Meetings, members of Our Land Our Business, a campaign of over 260 NGOs, farmer groups and trade unions from around the world, are publically posing three questions about the Bank’s role in land grabbing, climate destruction and the corporatization of agriculture. These questions penetrate to the heart of the World Bank’s development model and throw its loudly and expensively self-promoted claim to serve the interests of the world’s poor into stark relief. Why have you not spoken to farmers before promoting massive agriculture-reform programs? Your flagship agricultural reform initiative – “Enabling the Business of Agriculture” (EBA), formerly known as “Benchmarking the Business of Agriculture” (BBA) – is due to be rolled out across 40 countries this year. At no point in your decision to create the EBA have you consulted farmers or farmer groups.

World Opposes World Bank Global Land Grabs

March 17, 2015 Our Land Our Business, www.PopularResistance.org Resist! Food and Agriculture, Poverty, World Bank

Hundreds of civil society organizations are denouncing the World Bank’s role in global land grabs and its deceitful leadership on land issues. “The big question is whose interests the World Bank really serves. While they spend considerable time and money painting themselves as champions of the poor, the Bank has a battery of practices and policies that suggest a very different truth,” said Anuradha Mittal of the Oakland Institute. Mittal points to the hypocrisy of the Bank’s claims to be interested in “securing farmers’ access to land” by highlighting that around the world, local communities face forced evictions and human rights abuses linked to Bank-financed projects as documented in recent years in Uganda, Honduras, and Cambodia. Just last year, the Bank created a $350 million facility to cover the risks of investments made by the Silverlands Fund, a private equity fund that has been accused of financing land grabs.

World Bank President Admits Resettlement Failures

March 10, 2015 Ryan Schleif, www.theguardian.com Educate! Capitalism, Corporatism, Displacement, World Bank

The World Bank last week admitted publicly it had no idea how many people may have been forced off their land or lost their jobs due to its projects. The Bank also did not know whether these people were compensated fairly, on time or at all. “We took a hard look at ourselves on resettlement and what we found caused me deep concern,” said World Bank group president Jim Yong Kim. “We found several major problems. One is that we haven’t done a good enough job in overseeing projects involving resettlement; two, we haven’t implemented those plans well enough; and three, we haven’t put in place strong tracking systems to make sure that our policies were being followed. We must and will do better.” In internal documents now made public, the World Bank admitted its own failures to understand, monitor and deliver even on its most basic policies.

World Bank’s Sham Conference On Land And Poverty

February 11, 2015 The Oakland Institute, www.popularresistance.org Organize! Land grabs, Neoliberalism, Poverty, World Bank

Every year for the last fifteen years, the World Bank has organized “The Conference on Land and Poverty,” ostensibly to discuss how to “improve land governance.” And every year, the World Bank Group has been accused of financing projects that support often brutal grabbing of land and other resources from local communities. This year, the 16th such gathering will take place in Washington DC, March 23 to 27. And yet again, the hypocrisy of their claims to be leaders of just and fair land reform will be called out, with opponents pointing to the impact of some of their recent investments in places like Uganda (2011), Honduras (2012), and Cambodia (2014). The big question is whose interests the World Bank really serves. While they spend considerable time and money painting themselves as champions of the poor, the Bank has a battery of practices and policies that suggest a very different truth.

Groups Urge US To Phase Out World Bank Business Indicators

February 3, 2015 The Oakland Instiitute, www.popularresistance.org Resist! Corporatism, Neo-Liberalism, World Bank

Oakland, CA – Though it largely controls the institution, the US Government refuses to take action on World Bank programs that have adverse consequences on human rights, land rights, and social and environmental standards. Last November, 2014, eleven US-based organizations wrote to the US Alternate Executive Director of the World Bank, Ms. Sara Aviel, urging her to take action in order to phase out the Bank’s Doing Business and Benchmarking the Business of Agriculture (now called Enabling the Business of Agriculture) projects. The letter was sent on behalf of Our Land Our Business, a multicontinental campaign endorsed by 260 civil society organizations, trade unions, and farmers groups from around the world, which is demanding the end of these two World Bank projects.

Carbon Colonialism: Climate Change Fight Displacing Africans

December 6, 2014 Nafeez Ahmed, www.mintpressnews.com Educate! Environment, Kenya, World Bank

Since the launch of a World Bank sponsored conservation programme in west Kenya eights years ago, the Bank-funded Kenya Forest Service (FKS) has conducted a relentless scorched earth campaign to evict the 15,000 strong indigenous Sengwer community from their ancestral homes in the Embobut forest and the Cherangany Hills. The pretext? The Sengwer are ‘squatters’ accelerating the degradation of the forest. This October, with violence escalating, pressure from campaigners finally elicited a public response from World Bank president Jim Yong Kim, who promised to help facilitate “a lasting, peaceful resolution to this long, unfinished business of land rights in Kenya.”

Groups Oppose World Bank’s Doing Business Rankings

October 28, 2014 Staff, www.PopularResistance.org Educate! Corporatism, Environment, Taxes, Worker's Rights, World Bank

Tomorrow, October 29 2014, the World Bank will release its 2015 Doing Business report and ranking of some 189 countries, including our nation. The report helps business push countries in a race to the bottom with laws that do not protest workers, the environment, consumers or control the abuses of transnational corporation. Popular Resistance sees these rankings as a great disservice to the world that empowers corporations and weakens governments and the people. Since 2002, through this annual publication, the World Bank has been benchmarking and ranking countries according to “the ease of doing business.” The Doing Business is based on the principles of privatization, deregulation, low taxation for corporations, and ‘free market’ fundamentalism. It rewards the lowering of social and environmental safeguards, therefore allowing the exploitation of natural resources and human capital by foreign corporations and local elites.

Protesting The Bank That Should Never Have Been Born

October 12, 2014 Staff, www.popularresistance.org Resist! Neoliberalism, Poverty, World Bank

As part of the Our Land Our Business campaign to abolish the exploitative Doing Business Rankings, actions to protest the World Bank were held around the world on October 10. In some places where the security state is harsh such as in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and DRCongo, the actions revolved around social media and teach-ins. In London, England and India, protesters held signs outside of World Bank offices. A large protest was held in Washington, DC close to the World Bank Headquarters where the annual meeting was being held. About 75 protesters gathered at Rawlins Park for a spirited rally which was emceed by Kymone Freeman of Washington's We Act Radio.

New Report Dismantles World Bank’s Myths On Agriculture

October 11, 2014 Anuradha Mittal, www.oaklandinstitute.org Educate! Corporatism, Food and Agriculture, Neoliberalism, World Bank

In the agricultural domain for instance, the Bank claims to work to secure farmers’ access to land; however its direct financing to firms practicing large-scale and export-oriented agriculture is increasing pressure on land, water, and forests. In several countries, including Honduras and Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR), the Bank has directly supported investors that are grabbing land from local populations and that involve significant human rights violations.5 Recently, the Bank’s proposal to revise its environmental and social safeguard policies triggered concern that the institution will increase financing of projects that are damaging for the environment and local communities.6 The World Bank’s agriculture-related projects, which it claims aim to defend the interests of smallholders, in fact negate the potential of small-scale agriculture and agroecological practices to bring sustainable and inclusive development to countries.

World Bank Denounces Fraudulent Activist Press Release

October 10, 2014 World Bank Staff, worldbank-press.org Organize! Poverty, World Bank

Activists impersonating the World Bank released a fraudulent press release yesterday announcing a plan to abolish the institution by 2030, in line with goals to end extreme poverty. This claim is entirely false and in no way represents the views, policies, or intentions of the World Bank Group. "This sort of childish prank helps no-one," said Pedro Alba, Vice President for Budget, Strategic Planning & Performance Review. "The World Bank Group has a proud history of fostering the economic growth of nations over many decades. We needn't tie our own jobs to amorphous global goals to prove our commitment to eradicating the poorest of the poor. We encourage all media outlets to ignore this attempt to discredit us." The fake announcement targets the #EndPoverty2030 campaign, a hopeful and pragmatic vision designed to engage the public that is in no way meant to suggest a binding commitment.

Why Is The World Bank Failing On Energy Poverty?

October 10, 2014 Justin Guay, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! Climate Change, Energy, Enviornment, World Bank

World Bank energy investments are categorically failing to end energy poverty. That's the stark finding of a new report released by Sierra Club and Oil Change International which measures how multilateral development banks (MDB) fare on their efforts to end energy poverty. The report benchmarked recent MDB investments in clean energy access against the breakdown of needed investment called for in the International Energy Agency's (IEA) "Energy for All" scenario. In that scenario, universal energy access is achieved by 2030. As it stands, if the "Energy for All" scenario is going to succeed, it will require 64 percent of all new investments be used to fund the fastest, cheapest, and most effective source of energy that will help energy poor populations get on to the energy ladder. That source of energy? Distributed off-grid and mini-grid clean energy systems for those living Beyond the Grid.

Join The Call-In Targeting The World Bank

October 8, 2014 Staff, www.popularresistance.org Resist! Poverty, World Bank

The World Bank is a ‘development’ organization that distributes money it makes from Wall Street investments and grants from wealthy nations to less-wealthy nations. In order to get these loans, nations have to score well on the Bank’s Doing Business rankings. Scoring well usually means making their legal and economic environments as friendly as possible to multinational corporations (i.e., loosening regulations). These loans end up incentivizing unethical/environmentally-destructive policies and undermine the ability of smaller, local producers to survive. Call in to the numbers above tomorrow and demand answers from the World Bank’s representatives. Together, we will expose the Doing Business ratings system as the threat to families, farms, communities.

Return Of World Bank And People’s Resistance

October 7, 2014 Martin Kirk and Alnoor Ladha, www.truth-out.org Educate! Capitalism, Inequality, World Bank

If one was to do some superficial digging on the World Bank, you may get the impression that the Bank is a pure "development" organization, working exclusively in the interest of the public to reduce poverty and inequality. Indeed, the Bank's tagline is, "A world without poverty." But dig just a little deeper and the contours of a deep and extreme ideology become apparent. The World Bank reveals itself not as an altruistic benefactor of the world's poor so much as a link in the chain between Wall Street and the global south - a link the primary purpose of which is to facilitate profit for elite interests, through a long established pattern of wealth extraction. The World Bank is very well funded and vastly powerful. With money it makes trading on Wall Street and through donations from rich country governments, it distributes about $30 billion each year, mostly in loans, to less rich countries, ostensibly to promote economic development. But it has a pretty checkered history

Popular Resistance Newsletter – Actions Heat Up In US & Globally

October 4, 2014 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.popularresistance.org Newsletter Climate Change, Education, fast track, TPP, Wars and Militarism, World Bank

This past week, there has been a lot written about next steps in the climate justice movement. Now that hundreds of thousands have marched, it shows that the movement exists. But marching alone doesn’t change things, so what do we do? There are many tactics required to move to a carbon-free nuclear-free energy economy. The task for all of us is to build on the momentum created by the march and the Flood Wall Street sit-in and escalate both resistance and building alternatives. Here are a number of opportunities: Stopping Tar Sands excavation – the struggle to stop the expansion of tar sands excavation in Alberta, CA is making progress. Mike Hudema lists concrete successes in his article linked here. Resistance in the United States to transporting the bitumen from Canadian tar sands continues to be strong.

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