The 2026 World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings are taking place in Bangkok, Thailand, from 12-18 October. It will be the eighth time they are held in Asia since the early-1990s, reflecting the long-standing history and legacy of both in the region. People across Asia have suffered from the impacts of BWIs’ policies and prescriptions for decades, including their pivotal role in creating the conditions that led to the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis and the counterproductive responses to it, which have had long-lasting, profound impacts on the economy, society and the environment.
In this Special Issue, partners from IBON International, International Development Associates (IDEAs), Institute for Studies in Industrial Development (ISID), NGO Forum on ADB, RITES Forum member of the APFWLD, and the Centre for Financial Accountability analyse the legacy of the BWIs on pivotal issues for the Asian region. See below for more details:
I. Introduction: The road to Bangkok is paved with imperialist intentions – what could be a different path?
Rodolfo Lahoy, Jennifer del Rosario-Malonzo and Iggy Sandrino, of IBON International, analyse how the impacts of economic, social and ecological crises brought about by decades of integration into monopoly capitalism have harmed prospects for genuine development, or economic transformation.
II. BWIs’ response to the Asian Financial Crisis in Southeast Asia and its legacy
C. P. Chandrasekhar, of International Development Associates (IDEAs), argues the Annual Meetings in Bangkok provide an opportunity for a change of approach so that the Bank and Fund avoid losing what is left of their legitimacy.
III. MDBs’ role in fuelling the war, energy and climate crises
Nazareth Del Pilar, of NGO Forum on ADB, notes that energy policy changes at the World Bank and ADB is not a genuine crisis response, and calls for a just, transparent, renewable energy- centred alternative.
IV. Southeast Asia’s lost steam: ‘Middle-income-trap’ or ‘neoliberal trap’?
Satyaki Roy, of the Institute for Studies in Industrial Development, analyses how the second tier of newly industrialised economies of Southeast Asia remained trapped in the middle-income group because of IMF and World Bank inspired neoliberal policies that restricted the autonomy of these economies in building cumulative industrial capacities.
V. Neoliberalism, mining and corporate capture in Odisha.
In this article, Sharanya Nayak, of RITES Forum member of the APFWLD, examines the consequences of the BWIs’ promotion of reforms through SAPs. Focusing on mining in Odisha, India, she looks at how trade liberalisation, privatisation and deregulation have enabled corporate capture of land and resources, deepened extractivism, and disproportionately affected Indigenous Peoples and women.
VI. Increasing influence, diminishing accountability: The World Bank in India.
Joe Athialy and Asmi Sharma of the Centre for Financial Accountability, look at the World Bank’s approach to accountability and assess how, as its modes of intervention expanded, the points at which accountability could be identified and contested also shifted, thus further eroding it to the detriment of affected communities.
This was originally published in Bretton Woods Project you can read it here.
