A week at the World Bank and IMF

The 2015 Spring Meetings and Civil Society Policy Forum brought people from many different sectors together to discuss how fiscal and development policy and governance can be made to serve real human need future-focused thinking and enforceable transparency. The news of the week, the running theme, and the most under-reported story in mainstream financial reporting, is that the work these institutions are looking forward to is about actual service to all people everywhere, especially the most vulnerable.

The World Bank’s mission is to end poverty and foster shared prosperity; the IMF focuses on fiscal solvency, and works to ensure nation-states don’t collapse from runaway inflation or crippling debt burdens. For decades, critics have argued that though well-intentioned, many of their projects have had the opposite effect, leaving harm where it didn’t need to be or propping up illegitimate regimes. As the voice…

A note on entering the new age of exploration*

Lake Superior is the largest body of fresh water in the world, by surface area, unless you count Lakes Huron and Michigan as one lake, because they are connected by an open flow of water 5 miles across. Where we draw boundaries determines how we rank the objects of our experience and exploration. On my first visit to Lake Superior, I had the privilege of being with two friends, who have redefined boundaries in ways that bring benefit to the wider world. Paul Thompson is a brilliant convener of friends and citizens, who brings people together, with a unique confidence in their ability to find each other’s virtues and build on them, together. David Thoreson is a sailor and Arctic explorer, whose voyages have taken him through the Northwest Passage, in both directions, and around the Americas, fully 28,000 miles in…

Citizens’ Climate Lobby report from the Pathway to Paris working session at the World Bank Civil Society Forum

Our Pathway to Paris World Bank Working Session, held at the Civil Society Policy Forum on Wednesday, April 15, focused on the role of direct citizen participation in the global climate negotiations. For many reasons, direct citizen participation has been limited:

1. One is there are already tens of thousands of people participating, representing interests, issues, places, solutions, grievances, and legal constructs.
2. Another is that intergovernmental negotiations generally treat the interests of citizens and stakeholders as the province of their government officials. The sovereignty and political process of nations stand in for direct engagement.
3. A third is that citizen participation is often equated to referenda, which are not always the best expression of the will of the people or the safest route to the policy that most benefits those voting.
4. But a…