Hall No (H5),
Xavier’s Centre of Historical Research, Alto Porvorim, Goa
The new Southern-led IFIs, the New Development Bank (NDB) set up by the BRICS, and the 57 member Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) (of which BRICS members control 43.29% of the vote), have moved fast to set up and are starting to lend across the world. While the rhetoric of these new banks has been the need to transform the global financial system and a rejection of the Western dominated Bretton Woods institutions, since their set up the banks have been using the language of cooperation and collaboration with existing IFIs, not competition or transformation.
Both t he new banks have gone ahead and announced loans of $911 million (NDB) and $509 million (AIIB) without having a full set of safeguard and independent oversight policies in place.
What is the role and position of social movements and civil society across BRICS countries and Asia in monitoring and critiquing these new banks? What lessons can be learned from the long history of struggle against IFIs over the past decades? What should be our position and demands on key areas of policy of these new banks, including public information and disclosure, environmental and social safeguards, independent grievance redressal procedures, energy and sustainability, and consultation and engagement with civil society and project-affected communities?
This workshop proposes to bring together experienced and engaged activists and analysts from across the BRICS countries to discuss a people’s position on the NDBs and social movements’ demands from these new banks.
Organised by:
Bank Information Centre Trust, Centre for Financial Accountability
NGO Forum on ADB
For more information write to: Maju Varghese, Rayyan Hassan,
