As IFC delayed a damning report on a Liberian rubber plantation, the owner sold the business

For over a year, the World Bank’s private investment arm delayed the release of a damning internal report detailing its failure to adequately address alleged land grabs, environmental pollution and other serious harms at a rubber company it financed in Liberia.

By the time the International Finance Corporation released the report in mid-March, the business’s former owner, a Luxembourg-based agricultural giant called Socfin Group, had divested, handing control over its 17-square-mile plantation to a new owner.

Advocates for 22 communities affected by the problems told ICIJ the sale allowed Socfin and the IFC to minimize their responsibility for addressing harm done to workers and plantation residents, adding to longstanding criticisms of the World Bank’s handling of damages caused by projects it finances. The IFC is owned by 186 countries and the businesses it finances have to meet certain standards for managing environmental and social risks.

“This is not the first time that the IFC has delayed and not stepped up,” Stephanie Amoako, policy director at Accountability Counsel, said. In the SRC case, she sees parallels with the IFC’s investment in Bridge International Academies, which operates private schools in Africa.

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