Up to $41 billion of the funds distributed to climate causes by the World Bank between 2017 and 2023 are unaccounted for due to poor accounting standards, according to an audit from Oxfam International published Thursday. [emphasis, links added]
The enormous sum represents almost 40% of the climate funds the Bank disbursed during the seven-year period, with World Bank data failing to show the recipients and uses of the money, the Oxfam investigation found.
“The Bank is quick to brag about its climate finance billions — but these numbers are based on what it plans to spend, not on what it actually spends once a project gets rolling,” Kate Donald, head of Oxfam International’s Washington D.C. Office, said in the release.
“This is like asking your doctor to assess your diet only by looking at your grocery list, without ever checking what actually ends up in your fridge.”
The auditors were unable to determine whether the climate cash was spent “on climate-related initiatives intended to help low- and middle-income countries protect people from the impacts of the climate crisis and invest in clean energy,” according to Oxfam.
The World Bank is the largest provider of environmental funding of all multi-national financial institutions, Oxfam reported, with plans to allocate 45% of its annual financing to green initiatives between July 1, 2024, and June 20, 2025.
The U.S. is the largest shareholder in the Bank, holding over 15% of its voting shares as of May 31.
“Climate finance is scarce, and yes, we know it’s hard to deliver. But not tracking how or where the money actually gets spent? That’s not just some bureaucratic oversight — it’s a fundamental breach of trust that risks derailing the progress we need to make at COP this year,” Donald said in the release.
The World Bank’s poor record-keeping practices made performing the audit “painstaking and difficult,” Oxfam reported.
“We had to sift through layers of complex and incomplete reports, and even then, the data was full of gaps and inconsistencies,” Donald said in the release.
“The fact that this information is so hard to access and understand is alarming — it shouldn’t take a team of professional researchers to figure out how billions of dollars meant for climate action are being spent. This should be transparent and accessible to everyone, most importantly communities [that] are meant to benefit from climate finance.”
Top image via AI Magic Studio
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Headline is ambiguous. Was the money found, per was the finding that the money was missing? 🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️😂😂😂😂😂😂👍
The “per” was supposed to be “or” 🤦🏻♂️
The criminals who who run the various governments have i and have spent it on their own personal whims.
When you are On The Left you can do any dishonesty because you are On The Side Of The People, yeh?
Some people call it “the good lie” . Trudeau has been doing it for years.
All his “goodwill spending” doesn’t happen but evaporates over time. Ask NATO.
Someone is dipping their hands into the Global; Money Bin and helping themselves toa few Million Dollars or more