IFC

Bloomberg's Big Take podcast looks at an investigation into allegations of sexual coercion at plantations run by Socfin, a rubber company supplying top tiremakers.

Hubert Fabri and Vincent Bolloré own plantations accused of land appropriation and labor abuses. Their company says it has taken steps to improve matters, but a trip to West Africa shows sexual coercion claims remain widespread.

Advocates for 22 communities affected by the problems told ICIJ the sale allowed Socfin and the IFC to minimize their responsibility for addressing harm done to workers and plantation residents, adding to longstanding criticisms of the World Bank's handling of damages caused by projects it finances.

The World Bank unit's "action plan" is an attempt to respond to its own compliance advisor's recommendations on issues ranging from land grabs to sexual exploitation on the plantation.

More than a year late, the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation has finally submitted its response to an investigation that found evidence of grave human rights violations at the Salala Rubber Corporation (SRC) that it helps fund in Liberia.

US court orders the IFC to pay nearly $5 million in reparations to members of Honduran land defense movements who faced violence at the hands of security forces linked to a Central American palm oil corporation that received a $30 mn World Bank loan in 2009.

The transaction marks the World Bank's IFC's first engagement with an institutional timberland investment manager, which is expected to generate carbon credits through nature-based solutions in Brazil.

When the industrial agriculture investor Agilis Partners targeted the lands of Kiryandongo for its investments, residents never knew that the company would empoly several tactics to force them out. One of them was sexual violence.

Groups petition the World Bank, US and Netherlands to support an independent investigation into human rights abuses committed against dozens of vulnerable people in Kiryandongo District, western Uganda, by agribusiness company, Agilis Partners.

The transferability of land, along with the liberalisation of agriculture and finance the Bank and IMF have pushed on Global South states, have facilitated investment in agribusiness and driven the financialisation of national agricultural sectors.

The World Bank’s independent watchdog, the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO), has finalized its investigation into a complaint filed five years ago, alleging grave human rights violations by communities living near the Salala Rubber Corporation in Liberia.

A comprehensive study of thousands of agribusiness and other projects funded by the World Bank’s IFC from 1994-2022 finds that the average project "causes 7.6 additional armed conflict events in the year after it is introduced”.