As the world’s poorest countries sink further and further into debt, Western corporations grow fat from government-backed projects that fuel conflicts, harm the environment and have built-in kickbacks.
Since colonising Tibet in 1959, China has ripped out virgin forests, dug up minerals and metals, and dumped nuclear waste with little regard for the fragile ecology of the Tibetan plateau.
How the Colombian capital Bogotá defied the World Bank and the multinationals, refused to privatise and turned its water services into the best in the country
Russia’s zapovedniks are some of the world’s most pristine wildernesses. For 70 years they were protected ruthlessly by the Soviet system, but recently they have fallen prey to Putin, the World Bank and ecotourists. Paul Webster reports on their plight
You can ‘structurally adjust’ an economy in a matter of years, but it takes longer to destroy a culture. Heiner Thiessen reports from Senegal on the impact of imposing a Western cash economy on a traditional African barter society
By using taxpayers' money to back environmentally-destructive projects around the world, ECAs are lining the pockets of multinational companies at the expense of the planet. Export credit agencies, explains Simon Retallack, are the worlds largest public financiers of environmental destruction.
