Development Banks and Export Credit Agencies

International financial institutions or 'IFIs' set the development agenda for Latin America, Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. These institutions include the World Bank Group, the Asian Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Investment Bank, the Interamerican Development Bank and Export credit agencies - now the world's biggest class of IFI, collectively exceeding in size the World Bank Group.

What's wrong with International Financial Institutions?

Loans from IFIs have caused grave environmental and social problems for millions of people all over the world. Ill-conceived programs and large-scale development projects like hydroelectric dams, roads and bridges, nuclear power plants, mining and oil and gas exploitation have often caused irreversible environmental impacts, displaced entire communities, and destroyed indigenous cultures. IFIs force a neoliberal development model upon communities all over the world, often without their consent.

did you know?

A global poll in 2003 found that only 21% of opinion leaders thought the World Bank was fostering environmental sustainability.

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Find out more about:

• European Investment Bank
• Asian Development Bank
• Export Credit Agencies
• For information about the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development visit Bankwatch
• For a calendar of upcoming meetings and events check out IFI Watchnet

news

• Wolfowitz for World Bank president - alarming and disappointing say Friends of the Earth groups (6 April 2005).
• Friends of the Earth Germany and Germanwatch take legal action against the German government for the disclosure of the contribution made by German export credit agency Euler Hermes AG ("Hermes") to climate change. Read the press release, or find out more in the briefing (15 June 2004).
• On the 60th anniversary of the World Bank - the Friends of the Earth chair demands that President Wolfensohn gets out of oil, coal and gas
• Inter-American Development Bank annual meeting - a campaign of misinformation and harassment.
• The Asian Development Bank - a betrayal of Asia & the Pacific. Find out why we boycotted the annual meeting.