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Submission on the Access to Information Policy of the International Financial Corporation (IFC)
- By Raphael CLD
- 28 October 2025
Submission on the Access to Information Policy of the International Financial Corporation (IFC)
In October 2025, the Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD), in collaboration with several other civil society organisations, prepared a joint submission on the ATI Policy of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank Group. The submission was made during the IFC review of its Sustainability Framework, which includes its Access to Information Policy (ATI Policy). The submission makes a number of recommendations, including relating to the regime of exceptions which, among other weaknesses and uniquely among international financial institutions (IFIs), is not even comprehensive (i.e. the IFC can formally claim exceptions which are not listed in the Policy).
Some of the key recommendations in the Submission are as follows:
- The list of exceptions should be substantially revised so that it aligns with international standards, including by subjecting all exceptions to a harm test, and by making the public interest override mandatory instead of discretionary and applying it to all exceptions.
- The scope of the policy should be broadened to include all information and documents held by the IFC, instead of being limited to information “concerning its activities”, which has been interpreted restrictively.
- A number of improvements to the procedures for making and processing requests should be introduced to make this a user-friendly system.
- Proactive disclosure practices should be improved to ensure the timely and complete provision of information of key public interest.
The Submission is available here. A list of organisations which have endorsed it can be viewed here.
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