Agrarian Trust

Conference on Land and Poverty: Who Does the World Bank Serve?

A post published by Our Land Our Business asks what’s really happening at the 15th Conference on Land and Poverty in Washington D.C., scheduled for March 23-27th.

From the post:

“The big question is whose interests the World Bank really serves. While they spend considerable time and money painting themselves as champions of the poor, the Bank has a battery of practices and policies that suggest a very different truth,” said Anuradha Mittal of the Oakland Institute.

Mittal points to the hypocrisy of the Bank’s claims to be interested in “securing farmers’ access to land” by highlighting that around the world, local communities face forced evictions and human rights abuses linked to Bank-financed projects as documented in recent years in UgandaHonduras, and Cambodia. Just last year, the Bank created a $350 million facility to cover the risks of investments made by the Silverlands Fund, a private equity fund that has been accused of financing land grabs.

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