Image: Highland scene in Amhara, Ethiopia. © The Oakland Institute

 

Since 2014, the Our Land Our Business campaign has been demanding the end of World Bank’s Doing Business (DB) ranking and Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA). These ranking systems reward countries for reducing their labor standards, destroying their environment, and providing easy access for corporate pillaging and land grabs. They create a race-to-the-bottom between countries as they clamor for World Bank investment dollars.

Latest Updates

Be Ready to Further Corporate Exploitation — World Bank Resuscitates Defunct Doing Business Project

Frederic Mousseau World Bank’s latest Business Ready or B-Ready project, announced on May 1, 2023, resuscitates the defunct Doing Business Report (DBR).…

Amidst Chaos of War, A New Report Exposes the Stealth Take-over of Ukrainian Agricultural Land

—FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE— February 21, 2023; 5:00 AM PST Media Contact: amittal@oaklandinstitute.org, +1 510-469-5228 One year into the war, a new report…

The End of World Bank’s “Doing Business Report”: A Landmark Victory for People & Planet

Source: Inter Press Service Andy Currier The writer is Research Associate at the Oakland Institute in San Francisco, USA. SAN FRANCISCO, USA,…

World Bank Riddled With Major Flaws : Doing Business Report Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg

–FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE— September 23, 2021 Washington DC, USA The World Bank has announced that it will discontinue the publication of its flagship Doing…

A Landmark Victory: World Bank Finally Ends Its Destructive and Corrupt Doing Business Report

—FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE— September 16, 2021, 7:00 PM PT Media Contact: Anuradha Mittal, amittal@oaklandinstitute.org +1 510-469-5228 The World Bank announced today it…

Ceasing Publication of the Doing Business Report

Letter to the World Bank Executive Directors March 11, 2021 We write as concerned members of the civil society organisations, academia and…

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#WorldVsBank

World Bankers


Corporations are on a land grab across the world
with help from the World Bankers

The World Bank’s Doing Business ranking gives points to countries when they act in favor of the “ease of doing business.” This consists of smoothing the way for corporations’ activity by, for instance, cutting administrative procedures, lowering corporate taxes, removing environmental and social regulations, or lowering trade barriers.

The ranking system also encourages land reforms that tend to make land just a marketable commodity, easily accessible to wealthy corporations. In the process, they neglects things like human rights, the protection of workers, and the sustainable use of natural resources.

Read the reports


Read our special report: Down On the Seed, the World Bank Enables Corporate Takeover of Seeds

Who’s losing out?

The people most impacted by these policies are smallholder farmers, who produce 80 percent of the food consumed in the developing world. They are the backbone of the food system and are by far the principal investors and main employers in developing countries’ agricultural sector. It is their capacity to invest and develop their land that should be strengthened.

There is more than enough food for everyone, if proper support is given to smallholder farmers , pastoralists and Indigenous Peoples. The World Bank’s preference, though, is to use its power, through weapons like the Doing Business rankings and Benchmarking the Business of Agriculture, to impose its one-size-fits, corporate-led all model of development. This jeopardizes developing countries’ ability to feed themselves and helps drive inequality all over the world.

Facts we should know about the business of land grabs