CSO letter to World Bank President re CAO report on Bulyanhulu mine

December 12, 2002

Mr. James Wolfensohn
President
The World Bank Group
1818 H Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20433 U.S.A.

Dear Mr. Wolfensohn,

We are writing to express dismay at the recent Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman report on the MIGA guarantee of the Bulyanhulu gold mine and to request your urgent intervention.

The CAO is a mechanism that non-governmental organizations have pushed hard to establish. Your personal support for the initiative played a major role in ensuring that the CAO was established. As all parties have observed, the CAO's effectiveness rests on the respect and trust it enjoys amongst the public: integrity, transparency, even¬handedness and thoroughness are thus critical to all aspects of its work.

Open letter to the G7 finance ministers - June 1, 2002

Open letter to the G7 finance ministers

When the G7 heads of government met in Halifax in June 1995, leaders made a commitment to a series of measures to reform the Bretton Woods Institutions. The G7 called for the provision of multi-lateral debt relief for the poorest countries, the promotion of environmentally sustainable development and the reduction of poverty.

Seven years later, these promises are unfulfilled. The crisis of legitimacy confronting the World Bank and the IMF at the 50th anniversary of their creation led to the G7 to take up the reform of the international financial institutions (IFIs) in Halifax. As the G7 finance ministers return to Halifax, this question of legitimacy continues to haunt the institutions.

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