(July 8, 2006) In a recent address on western aid to Africa, outspoken Ugandan journalist Andrew Mwenda said "the best thing the West can do" for Africa "is nothing."

(July 7, 2006) The World Bank’s high-profile focus on curbing corruption looks set to continue but to what effect can the Bank implement its anti-graft agenda when the Bank itself has been "the cause of corruption, and odious and illegitimate debts, in the past?" asks Gail Hurley of the
Brussels-based NGO network Eurodad.

(June 19, 2006) Countries in the midst of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative have seen a worsening of their debt and fiscal management, claims a new World Bank evaluation; other countries went back into debt trouble after completing the programme.

(May 24, 2006) Certainly there is harsh criticism of Wolfowitz, but it seems tempered by a sense that his approach offers a chance for change at the World Bank, a lumbering institution often berated as secretive, bureaucratic and ineffective.

(March 13, 2006) Last year was celebrated as the "Year of Africa." Tony Blair proposed a doubling of aid to the continent; the world’s rich nations promised debt elimination; and the Bush administration talked up its remarkably good record in boosting foreign assistance.

(April 25, 2006) Following allegations of corruption, a local NGO has appealed for an audit of the tenders allocated in the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP), the world’s largest water transfer operation.

(April 22, 2006) Ahead of this weekend’s Spring meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), Africa Action and allied organizations today staged a theatrical "health inspection" of these institutions, finding them to be a public health hazard in Africa and other impoverished regions.