World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings have become synonymous with anti-globalisation protests, some of them having had to be violently put down with tear gas and water cannons. Continue Reading

Kaushik Basu, the World Bank’s Chief Economist, is only into the first week of his new job as he attends the Annual Meetings of the Bank and the IMF in Tokyo this week. Continue Reading

Just to remind everyone that we are in Japan, the organisers of the Annual Meetings of the World Bank and IMF scheduled an earthquake on Friday afternoon at 1:55 pm. ( The  5.1 magnitude quake occurred near the near the east coast of Honshu, Japan.) Continue Reading

World Bank President Jim Yong Kim probably knew at the Wall Street Journal’s ‘The Big Interview’ at the WB-IMF Annual Meetings in Tokyo on Thursday that he would have to field some tough questions. Continue Reading

World Bank President Jim Yong Kim reminded the media at a briefing in Tokyo on Thursday that he had completed 104 days in office, and in that time he was frightened by what he had learnt about what climate change was doing to food security  throughout the world. Continue Reading

The IMF’s Christine Lagarde says there has been a lot of talk, and now “it is time for action”. Continue Reading

‘SDRs’ bring to mind Special Drawing Rights of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an international reserve asset that the Fund created to supplement its member countries’ official reserves and whose value is based on a basket of four international currencies. But at the 2012 Tokyo Annual Meetings of the IMF-WB Group, SDRs refer to ‘Special Discount Rights’, which according to the official information kit are “exclusive benefits offered by hundreds of stories and restaurants” to meeting participants. Continue Reading

That the GreatEast Japan Earthquake and the issue of disaster recovery, preparedness and inclusion in countries’ development plans provide the backdrop to the Annual Meetings is clear not only from programme. Included in the participants’ official kits are three ‘Okiagari-koboshi’, stand-up dolls made in the quake-hit Tohoku area. Continue Reading

Famous for vending machines which sell everything from umbrellas to underwear, toilets that wash and dry your buttocks, and game consoles like Nintendo, technologically advanced Japan left us somewhat perplexed as we tried to ensure that our reporting team could easily stay in touch through data capability, including through Whatsapp and others. Continue Reading

Interesting coincidence? The headline in the brochure of the Japan Tourism Agency for the Annual Meetings reads ‘Japan All In’ – which brings to mind the sports brand Adidas’ ad campaign that goes ‘Adidas is all in’.