Citizens, activists, and experts gathered to document the human cost of development policies.
This site catalogues presentations, testimonies, and media from the Independent People's Tribunal on the World Bank held at Jawaharlal Nehru University in September 2007. It was the first People's Tribunal in India which brought together a broad spectrum of society to look at the damage caused by the World Bank to the country as a whole. Affected communities and concerned groups presented testimonies across four days in order share experiences and to inject a sense of responsibility for people's rights into the discourse about the Bank.
At the time of the Tribunal in 2009, World Bank engagement in India was at a historic high, with 106 active projects and outstanding debt of just over $34 billion. Today, despite a sharp reduction to only 15 active or pipeline lending projects, India continues to carry approximately $38 billion in World Bank debt—underscoring how the financial obligations of development lending persist long after projects end.
