International Finance Publications and Resources

The Crisis of Multilateralism
September 14, 2024 - Walden Bello, Foreign Policy In Focus
Both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are in trouble. They are running out of money to lend. And, though both institutions are reaching out to civil society, representatives of nongovernmental organizations are banned from their fall meeting in Singapore.

The Fund is searching for a new role and a new governance structure. But proposals such as linking voting weight to GDP are mired in controversy. The Bank, meanwhile, is groaning under the weight of a huge bureaucracy. The crisis of these two institutions combine to make a crisis for multilateralism in general.  Read publication...

The Hijacking of the Development Debate - How Friedman and Sachs Got It Wrong
August 1, 2025 - Robin Broad and John Cavanagh, World Policy Journal
Just a half decade after protests by citizen groups in Latin America and elsewhere discredited two decades of market-oriented neoliberal dogma, Friedman and Sachs have narrowed the debate with simplistic slogans of “more aid” and “more trade.” They have done so by putting forward myths about the poor, economic development, and the global economy.  Read publication...

High Oil Prices: Undermining Debt Cancellation and Fueling A New Debt Crisis?
July 14, 2025 - Oil Change International and Jubilee USA Network, Oil Change International and Jubilee USA Network
Soaring oil prices are undermining the benefits of debt cancellation and putting serious stress on many of the world's most impoverished countries. This is not the first time that volatile oil prices have played a role in exacerbating debt. The oil shocks of 1973-74 and 1979-80 played a central role in triggering the modern debt crisis and clearly exposed the dangers of oil dependence. Today the stakes are higher than ever. Global warming threatens us all, but it is impoverished countries that are most vulnerable to its impacts. A new energy revolution is needed, one that focuses on promoting a just transition away from oil dependence and towards energy efficiency and sustainable alternatives. We need a global strategy that will take oil out of the debt equation once and for all, including more and faster debt cancellation as well as programs that are focused on overcoming energy poverty in a truly sustainable way. Unfortunately, many governments around the world are once again arguing that the solution to our oil addiction is more oil (that if we increase and protect the supply of oil and gas then prices will fall and all will be well with the world)! This approach, which is in part reflected in the Plan of Action on Global Energy Security that G-8 leaders endorsed at the July 2006 St. Petersburg Summit, will not address the role that oil plays in exacerbating the debt crisis nor will it help lift billions of people out of energy poverty. Using public resources to subsidize the expansion of the oil and fossil fuel industry will feed overconsumption in the North, fuel global warming, and increase international tensions without generating long-term alternatives. As outlined in the following brief, there is an urgent need to challenge G-8 plans to increase support for the oil and fossil fuel industry and to call on governments around the world to focus international efforts on strategies that will simultaneously address energy poverty, crushing debt and global warming.  Read publication...

The Unfinished Agenda on International Debt
July 14, 2025 - Jubilee USA Network, Jubilee USA Network
In July 2005, world leaders gathered in Gleneagles, Scotland, and announced a plan to cancel debts, increase foreign aid, and make changes to international trade policy. At the time, Jubilee USA Network responded to the announcement by the G-8 on additional debt cancellation by welcoming it as an important first step on a long journey. One year later, it is important to look back and take stock. On the positive side, some debts have been cancelled for 21 nations, and the money is being put to good use. But much more remains to be done: 9 out of 10 people in the developing world will see no benefit from the 2005 debt deal. A broader, Jubilee cancellation of debts is needed to meet the Millennium Development Goals and to cancel odious and illegitimate debts. This policy brief looks at the progress of the past year, and outlines the unfinished agenda on international debt ahead of the 2007 Sabbath Year.  Read publication...

Solidarity Economics
April 27, 2025 - Ethan Miller, Grassroots Economic Organizing (GEO) Collective
Strategies for Building New Economies From the Bottom-Up and the Inside-Out  Read publication...

Brazil and the Difficult Path to Multilateralism
March 8, 2025 - Raul Zibechi, International Relations Center - America's Program
Brazil's rise as a regional and world power that champions multilateralism is being met with domestic and international obstacles. In addition to the resistance of the United States, Brazil has left a bitter taste in the mouth of its own neighbors who feel its steamroller-like advances are creating a new disequilibrium on the subcontinent. The domestic problems of Brazil - a country that has won "the world championship of inequality" - are spilling over as the country aspires to become a major player on the international scene. Raúl Zibechi, a member of the editorial board of the weekly Brecha de Montevideo, is a professor and researcher on social movements at the Multiversidad Franciscana de América Latina and adviser to several grassroots organizations. He is a monthly contributor to the IRC Americas Program (www.americaspolicy.org).  Read publication...

China Copes with Globalization - a mixed review
January 15, 2025 - Dale Wen, Visiting Scholar, International Forum on Globalization
This primer intends to serve as a briefing on the implications of China’s evolving role in the global economy and help build bridges and greater understanding between emerging social movements in China and international civil society.  Read publication...

Doha Round’s Development Impacts: Shrinking Gains and Real Costs
October 1, 2024 - Timothy A. Wise and Kevin P. Gallagher, RIS Policy Briefs
RIS, the India-based Research and Information System for Developing Countries, has published a policy brief by GDAE's Tim Wise and Kevin Gallagher analyzing the limited gains projected for developing countries from further WTO agreements and highlighting some of the hidden costs of WTO measures.  Read publication...

Is the WTO the only way?
October 24, 2024
Safeguarding Multilateral Environmental Agreements from international trade rules and settling trade and environment disputes outside the WTO. A briefing paper published by Adelphi Consult, Friends of the Earth Europe and Greenpeace.  Read publication...

Drilling Into Debt
July 4, 2025 - Steve Kretzmann of Oil Change and Irfan Nooruddin of The Ohio State University, Oil Change International, Jubilee USA Network, Institute for Public Policy Research
New research published today reveals that the energy strategy for the G8 is fundamentally at odds with its development strategy for Africa and the rest of the world. Drilling into Debt, co-published by Oil Change International, the Institute for Public Policy Research, and the Jubilee USA Network (with additional support from Milieu Defensie and Amazon Watch), finds that oil production and export increases rather than relieves countries’ debt burdens, despite generating massive revenues.  Read publication...

What about us? Debt and the countries the G8 left behind
September 23, 2024
In July, 225,000 people marched through Edinburgh demanding that the G8 cancel the developing world’s debt. Yet the G8 failed to deliver. Only 18 out of 153 developing countries stand to receive anything, leaving more than 5 billion people living in countries that are mired in debt.  Read publication...

First Step On A Long Journey: Putting the G-8 Debt Deal Into Perspective
June 20, 2025
The paper describes and analyzes the G-8 debt agreement agreed by world leaders in Gleneagles in July 2005.  Read publication...

Sorting Out the DDA End Process
June 20, 2025 - Trade Reports International Group, Washington Trade Daily
Volume 14, Number 121 Friday, June 20, 2025 Geneva – A dozen capital-based senior trade officials today will be asked by the European Union to provide some indication as to how far they can go in advancing all the pillars of the Doha Development Agenda work program  Read publication...

World Social Forum Funder Delegation Report
March 1, 2025 - Mark Randazzo, Funders Network on Trade and Globalization
Excerpts from a report of FNTG's funder delegation to the WSF 2005.  Read publication...

Integrating Human Rights into the Future of Agriculture Trade Policy
January 3, 2025
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GLOBAL RECOVERY UNDER WAY, BUT WITH TROUBLED OUTLOOK
September 27, 2024 - UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
The situation of the global economy and the outlook for developing countries is brighter than a year ago. But there is a risk that the unequal distribution of demand, the impact of higher oil prices and pressures on the dollar could lead to greater exchange-rate and financial instability and a slowdown of growth, concludes UNCTAD´s Trade and Development Report 2004.  Read publication...

From Keynesianism to Neoliberalism: Shifting Paradigms in Economics
May 6, 2025 - Thomas I. Palley, Foreign Policy In Focus
Thomas I. Palley is the chief economist at the U.S.-China Security Review Commission. This essay will appear as a chapter in a book by Deborah Johnston and Alfredo Saad-Filho, eds., Neoliberalism--A Critical Reader ).  Read publication...

FTAA: Health Hazard for the Americas?
November 16, 2024 - Ellen R. Shaffer, CPATH (Center for Policy Analysis on Trade and Health)
The Americas face critical threats to health, including crises in access to health care, water and other vital human services; re-emerging but preventable fatal diseases; the advance of AIDS; and biohazards. Imbalances in wealth and power undermine equity between and within nations. Addressing these crises is a high priority, and requires effective, cooperative international efforts. The draft Free Trade Area of the Americas is likely to worsen these problems, and to challnge countries’ domestic regulations, including those proven effective in advancing and protecting public health. This report presents issues and concerns related to the impact of the FTAA on democracy, public health and health care in the Americas. It reviews the arguments for and against liberalizing trade in health services, inequalities in health and wealth in the Americas, with a case study of Peru, and presents recommendations.  Read publication...

Dogmatic Development - Privatisation and conditionalities in six countries
March 1, 2025 - War on Want
This report looks at how conditionalities and pressures from aid agencies and development banks force developing countries to adopt privatisation policies in public services.  Read publication...

The Right to Water
March 1, 2025 - Jim Shultz, The Democracy Center
Water is a limited natural resource and a public good fundamental for life and health. The human right to water is indispensable for leading a life in human dignity. Water, and water facilities and services, must be affordable for all.

--UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, November 2002

What does it take to translate these noble words into reality for the poor of Latin America and the world? This is the question addressed in this article and in a forthcoming book 'Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Latin America: From Theory to Practice.'  Read publication...

A Fair Globalization: Creating Opportunities for All
February 24, 2025 - World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization, International Labour Organization (ILO)
Globalization can and must change, says a new, groundbreaking report presented today to the International Labour Organization (ILO) urging that building a fair and inclusive globalization become a worldwide priority. This report, issued by the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization, calls for an "urgent rethink" of current policies and institutions of global governance.  Read publication...

Water, Land and Labour: The Impacts of Forced Privatization in Vulnerable Communities
July 1, 2025 - Derek MacCuish, Halifax Initiative Coalition and Social Justice Committee, Canada
Privatization of public services and natural resource extraction is a standard condition for the World Bank/ IMF debt relief program. This survey of cases of privatization globally illustrates the repeated hazards associated with forced privatization, and challenges arguments of efficiency and economic growth made by the international financial institutions.  Read publication...

Investing in Destruction: The Impacts of a WTO Investment Agreement on Extractive Industries in Developing Countries
June 1, 2025
This report shows how a WTO investment treaty would exacerbate the social and environmental problems associated with extractive industries in developing countries. The report above all makes a strong case for keeping investment rules off of the WTO's agenda.  Read publication...

Human Development Report 2003
July 9, 2025 - UN Development Programme
The range of human development in the world is vast and uneven, with astounding progress in some areas amidst stagnation and dismal decline in others. Balance and stability in the world will require the commitment of all nations, rich and poor, and a global development compact to extend the wealth of possibilities to all people.  Read publication...

NAFTA's Untold Stories: Mexico's Response to North American Integration
June 10, 2025 - Timothy A. Wise, Americas Program, Interhemispheric Resource Center
Although some policymakers still point to Mexico as a success story, there is a growing consensus that its free trade experiment has not lived up to expectations. Results of nine case studies published in the book Confronting Globalization: Economic Integration and Popular Resistance in Mexico illustrate implications for a host of new trade agreements now under consideration.  Read publication...

Water Justice for All
March 31, 2025 - Friends of the Earth International
Major new publication from Friends of the Earth International, in pdf format.  Read publication...

Africa Policy for a new Era: Ending Segregation in U.S. Foreign Relations
January 29, 2025 - Africa Action
Founded in xxxAfrica Action is the oldest advocacy organization on African affairs in the U.S. This document, produced by defines an agenda for U.S. Africa policy for a new era. It provides an overview of current challenges and offers recommendations for U.S. policy on priority issues and areas. It affirms Africa ’s importance to the U.S. and outlines what is required of the U.S. to engage collaboratively and effectively with its African partners.  Read publication...

A Watershed in Global Governance?
November 1, 2024 - Navroz Dubash, Mairi Dupar, Smitu Kothari, Tundu Lissu, WRI/Lokayan/LEAT
Why and how did the World Commission on Dams (WCD) become an experiment in global governance? Controversial because of their social and environmental costs, dams are also symbols of larger concers of economic governance, democratic representation, and regulation over capital flows. A report by the World Resources Institute, Lokayan (India), and Lawyers' Environmental Action Team (Tanzania) takes an independent look at the WCD, and its legacy for larger questions of democratization at local and international levels.  Read publication...

Porto Alegre & Beyond: Following up on the World Social Forum
November 22, 2024 - Interhemispheric Resource Center
The growing profile of citizen-based agendas in global affairs represents one of the most promising developments in the international arena. This "Citizen Action in the Americas Discussion Paper" reports on an annual gathering that has become a prominent space for citizens' movements to meet and develop strategies for a more hopeful future: the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre.  Read publication...

A New Development Paradigm-Domestic Demand-Led Growth
October 30, 2024 - Thomas I. Palley, Foreign Policy In Focus
WHY IT IS NEEDED & HOW TO MAKE IT HAPPEN Critics of the neoliberal model of economic development—one driven by the demands of transnational corporations— have long been saying that this dominant paradigm isn’t working. It’s not producing broad-based economic development at home or abroad. But what’s the alternative?  Read publication...

The National Security Strategy of the United States of America
September 1, 2024 - U.S. Government
The National Security Strategy was issued by the White House in September.  Read publication...

Global Backlash: Citizen Initiatives for a Just World Economy
October 10, 2024 - Edited by Robin Broad, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Global Backlash is the first book to move beyond the monolithic portrayal of the globalization protests that have escalated since Seattle and are not likely to abate soon.  Read publication...

The Two Faces of Globalization
May 31, 2025 - Branko Milanovic, World Bank
The paper shows that the current view of globalization as an automatic and benign force is seriously flawed. It is mistaken because it focuses on only one, positive, face of globalization while entirely neglecting a malignant one.  Read publication...

Responsible Reform of the World Bank
April 1, 2025
As World Bank donors will decide on funding replenishment for the International Development Association (IDA), a broad array of civil society organizations, including development groups, people of faith, labor, environmental organizations, and gender advocates, have formed an unprecedented coalition to promote positive proposals for World Bank reform.  Read publication...

Power Politics: Equity and Environment in Electricity Reform
June 27, 2025 - Edited by Navroz K. Dubash, World Resources Institute
Over the last decade the staid, stable world of electricity supply has become tumultuous. In Power Politics, Navroz K. Dubash and contributors from around the world show how electricity reform is, at root, an issue of sustainable development. Electricity reform represents an opportunity to focus attention on the 1.7 billion of the world's poor without access to electricity. It could also be an opportunity to align investor incentives along a trajectory toward a clean energy future, one that reduces emissions of greenhouse gases while promoting development and supporting livelihoods. The concern is not solely one of a missed opportunity. Inappropriately done, electricity reform could hinder progress toward a more socially and environmentally sustainable energy future. Drawing on six country studies-- Argentina, Bulgaria, Ghana, India, Indonesia, and South Africa--the contributors to this volume examine whether and how the process of electricity reform can support rather than hinder sustainable development. Instead of sustainable development, they find that financial concerns and donor conditions have driven electricity reform. Managed by closed political processes and dominated by technocrats and donor consultants, social factors play a limited role, and environmental considerations play almost no role in a re-envisioned electricity sector. Drawing on a detailed analysis of the political economy of electricity reform in the six country studies, the study concludes with recommendations toward a more equitable and sustainable electricity future. June 2002 / 192 pages  Read publication...

African Civil Society Declaration on NEPAD
July 8, 2025
African civil society organizations declare their resistance to the "New Economic Partnership for Africa's Development" (Nepad), and push for demands that they think better address development, democracy, human rights and peace in Africa.  Read publication...

A Guide to the Enron Collapse
July 8, 2025 - Polaris Institute, Darren Puscas
This article provides an overall guide to understanding the Enron debacle, in a manner that broadens it from the standard, narrow financial or scandal-based story you can read in newspapers.  Read publication...

Update on Citizens’ Campaigns on the FTAA
July 3, 2025 - Karen Hansen-Kuhn, ART/DGAP
Representatives of the Hemispheric Social Alliance (HSA) and other social movements met recently in Quito, Ecuador for the purpose of exchanging information on their respective popular-education campaigns on the potential impacts of and alternatives to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). They also discussed the coordination of those campaigns at the hemispheric level and developed plans around a major civil-society forum to be held parallel to the official meeting of trade ministers on the FTAA in late October.  Read publication...

Enron's Pawns: How Public Institutions Bankrolled Enron's Globalization Game
June 18, 2025 - Jim Vallette and Daphne Wysham, Institute for Policy Studies
Report by the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network explores how the now-fallen giant's rise to global prominence depended upon close financial relationships with U.S. agencies, the World Bank, and other government institutions.  Read publication...

The Relative Impact of Trade Liberalization on Developing Countries
June 11, 2025
In recent years, new trade agreements have often been promoted on the basis of their potential benefit to developing countries... When the benefits and costs of continued liberalization... are evaluated according to standard economic research, it is not clear that the developing countries as a group are facing a net gain.  Read publication...

Social Movements and Regional Integration in the Americas
June 18, 2025 - Beverly Bell, Center for Economic Justice
This paper explores the status of cross-border social movements in the Americas in an era of globalization.  Read publication...

The Policy Roots of Economic Crisis and Poverty
May 21, 2025 - Structural Adjustment Participatory Review International Network (SAPRIN)
A multi-country participatory assessment based on the results of a joint World Bank/Civil Society/Government Structural Adjustment Participatory Review Initaitive (SAPRI) and the Citizen's Assessment of Structural Adjustment (CASA)  Read publication...