World Bank Annuals 2023 Marrakech
Once again, Urgewald, international partners and local civil society groups put on a week of action. This time in Marrakech, Morocco.
Why? Because both Bretton Woods Institutions, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, fail to deliver a real transformative jolt but merely a half-hearted ‘evolution’. Against the backdrop of multiple crises, evolution will not do – only radical reform will. To put more pressure on the World Bank Group, civil society organizations joined forces in critical sessions on panels at the Annual Meetings but also protested together with the Moroccan civil society #WorldBankWorldProblems
Here are some impressions from Marrakech during the Annuals:
The week started off with the preparation for a stunt together with our partner organizations. One of our main demands is for the World Bank to end fossil fuel finance.
Led by Big Shift Global – a coalition of civil society groups from around the world including Urgewald – we participated in an action against the continued World Bank investments into fossil fuels.
The World Bank must stop investing into coal, oil and gas now!
Protests against the World Bank reform and its failure to address ongoing fossil fuel investments are taking place. Below our partner organization – the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice – demands an end to fossil fuel finance in front of the World Bank Office in the Philippines.
It is the last day of the conference and the stage for the World Bank Action Day is set.
World Bank Action Day
In alliance with Big Shift Global, Glasgow Action Teams and many other groups from all over the world, we claim that the World Bank is still not fit for purpose. We demand coal, oil and gas to be added to the World Bank Exclusion List – only then we can be certain that both direct and indirect fossil fuel finance stops.
NGO Voices on the Marrakech Meeting
- Urgewald: Is the World Bank giving billions of trade finance to fossil fuels?
- Global Policy Forum: World Bank reform. For whose benefit?
- Bretton Woods Project / CSO Joint Paper: Civil Society calls for rethink of World Bank’s Evolution Roadmap as part of wider reforms to highly unequal global financial architecture