Cargill & ADM Support Community Conflict in Indonesia

Do you remember in 2009 when the World Bank’s lending arm, the International Finance Corp. (IFC), came under fire from human rights and environmental organizations lobbying to halt its funding of destructive palm oil development in Indonesia and Malaysia? The 18-month global moratorium on lending for new palm oil investments that followed was a direct [...]

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World Bank Raises The Bar On Human Rights. Will Private Banks Follow?

Last December, I hinted that the World Bank was moving to adopt stronger new standards on Indigenous rights. After nearly three years of deliberation, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private lending arm of the World Bank, announced its revised Sustainability Framework last month. As the largest source of international financing for companies in the [...]

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Palm Oil’s Effects On Communities Around The World

Did you see The New York Times Op-Ed on Saturday titled “The World Bank’s Palm Oil Mistake“? I sure did. The author, Thompson Ayodele, provided a narrow perspective on the World Bank’s recent decision to continue it’s freeze on new lending to palm oil projects around the world until it’s framework and strategy is clarified. [...]

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World Bank and IFC: The Big Bucks Behind Indonesia’s Rainforest Destruction

With oil gushing in the gulf, activists locking down in boardrooms, the ball of financial reform being thrown from Wall Street to Washington and back again, and Indonesia announcing a two year freeze on the parceling out of its forests to international corporations, the world’s focus seems to be on corporations. But in the struggle [...]

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