March 2002 Insights Issue #40

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Sites for sore eyes

A good starting point to investigate issues around financial liberalisation, privatisation, banking restructuring, capital account regulation and microfinance is the World Bank’s Financial Sector network at www1.worldbank.org/finance and the search facility at www.worldbank.org/search.htm. A wealth of relevant reports are found via the search engines of the regional development banks: Inter-American Development Bank www.iadb.org; Asian Development Bank www.adb.org and African Development Bank www.afdb.org. Reports on bank privatisation processes in eastern Europe are provided by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development www.ebrd.com.

The work of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision is on the site of its host, the Bank for International Settlements, at www.bis.org/bcbs/index.htm. Further news of Basel and other regulatory policy initiatives is provided by the Institute of International Finance (a global association of financial institutions) are at www.iif.com/ifr/index.quagga. Regulation is among the themes of the collection of pro-liberalisation articles on the Knowledge Navigator database of the multinational-supported World Economic Forum www.weforum.org.

There are links to Africa’s online central banks and economic reports from around the continent at www.newafrica.com/economy/centralbanks.asp. Links to Asia’s central banks are at www.business-line.com/cebanks/asia/asia.htm. The Microfinance Gateway of the Consultative Group to Assist the Poorest nt1.ids.ac.uk/cgap/index.htm is a huge source of information on all aspects of managing and supervising microfinance institutions. The Asian Development Bank reviews the role of central banks in microfinance regulation at www.adb.org/Microfinance/default.asp. The DFID-funded Finance and Development Research Programme website is at: www.devinit.org/findev/index.

Among sites questioning, or campaigning against, the neo-liberal consensus are the Bretton Woods Project www.brettonwoodsproject.org/topic/financial, the Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South www.focusweb.org and the Malaysian-based Third World Network www.twnside.org.sg. Both the Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU) www.psiru.org and its partner, Public Services International www.world-psi.org critically examine privatisation and deregulation initiatives. Public Eye on Davos www.publiceyeondavos.ch monitors the World Economic Forum. The finance section of the OneWorld database is at www.oneworld.net/themes/topic/topic_122_1.shtml

Tim Morris
Refugee Studies Centre
University of Oxford

Fmr@qeh.ox.ac.uk