The latest from WDM

Welcome to the World Development Movement news pages. You can view our news by category in each campaign section, or get the whole lot below. For press inquiries please contact the press office.

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News

Green Climate Fund board meets for the first time

31 August 2012

After months of delay, the new UN Green Climate Fund (GCF) had its first board meeting between 23-25 August.

The board is important, as it will play a key role in defining the future direction of the fund and determining whether the GCF will provide genuine and much needed climate finance to poor countries or be yet another clone of the hated World Bank and its Climate Investment Funds (CIFs) which have foisted debt on some of the world’s poorest countries.

New report exposes scale of food price rises

30 August 2012

The World Bank's latest Food Price Watch reveals stark rises in food prices. Among the most striking statistics are:

Volksbanken becomes sixth European bank to withdraw from food speculation

15 August 2012

Austrian bank Volksbanken, has added to the growing number of European banks to withdraw investment funds linked to food commodities.

In total four German banks, one Scandanavian bank and one Austrian bank, including giants Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, have all either withdrawn food-based funds or stopped issuing new ones.

Campaigners issue warning on Cameron’s ‘hunger summit’

10 August 2012

On Sunday, David Cameron will attempt to capitalise on the international presence in London for the Olympics to convene a ‘hunger summit’ – but campaigners have warned that the prime minister’s big business approach ‘risks entrenching the root causes of hunger’.

World food prices jump 6 per cent

9 August 2012

World food prices jumped 6 per cent between June and July, according to new figures from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation.

Rio+20: UK pushes for ‘privatisation of nature’

22 June 2012

On the final day of the Rio+20 summit, the World Development Movement has slammed the lack of commitment from rich industrialised countries in the Rio+20 agreement, and has condemned the UK government’s use of the summit to push for the privatisation of nature.

Kirsty Wright, campaigner at the World Development Movement, said:

Rio+20 has produced a pathetically unambitious document devoid of solid commitments and packed with diplomatic fudges and ambiguous language. This will do nothing to solve the multiple crises we face.

Rio+20 Great Nature Sale: ‘ebay auction’ launched

20 June 2012

Ebay seller “Rio_Summit_Nature_Sale” today listed some of the world’s most famous forests, oceans, lakes and species for sale on ebay.

European proposals ‘inadequate’ to combat food price hikes

20 June 2012

European proposals for the regulation of the commodity markets are inadequate to prevent excessive speculation from contributing to food price spikes, according to a new report released today.

Report condemns EU push for biomass-fuelled ‘green economy’ at Rio+20

19 June 2012

EU plans to promote the replacement of fossil fuels with biomass at the Rio+20 Earth Summit could lead to hunger and environmental devastation, according to a report released today by the World Development Movement and the Transnational Institute.

The report, ‘Bio-economies: the EU’s real ‘Green Economy’ agenda’, condemns the EU’s bio-economy vision as “a tantalising mirage, promising a green future but likely to deliver a parched and arid reality”.

FSA ‘acts as lobby group for the City’

18 June 2012

The UK’s financial regulator is compromised by corporate capture and is increasingly acting as a lobbying arm for the sector it is supposed to regulate, a new report reveals today.

The report, ‘Financial Services Authority: watchdog or lapdog?’, by the World Development Movement, documents how funding from the City of London, a board dominated by figures from the banking sector, and a rapidly revolving door have led to a close relationship between regulators and the financial sector.