Civil society demands World Bank withdraw from the Board of Peace
And terminate facilitation of funding.
Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” is an “illegitimate and neo-colonial project that seeks to profiteer from an undemocratic version of reconstruction in Gaza”. That’s from a February 2026 statement from 16 human rights, environment and development organisations.
The statement protests the fact that World Bank President, Ajay Banga, is on the Board of Peace’s Executive Board.
The statement points out that,
From our work supporting communities harmed by World Bank funding globally, we know that large-scale infrastructure projects carry a high risk of land-grabbing and displacement, loss of livelihoods, resource extraction, and environmental damage. These risks are magnified in Gaza and made worse by the exclusion of Palestinian communities in the proposed governance of reconstruction efforts. Further, the proposed ‘master plan’ for the reconstruction of Gaza appears geared towards commercial gain for real estate developers and demonstrates little consideration for meeting the urgent needs of the local population for basic housing, food, medical or education services in the immediate term.
While the statement is excellent, and much needed, it could have also mentioned the World Bank’s disastrous role in promoting carbon trading and fortress conservation.
The statement refers to the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians’ statement that the Board of Peace, “further entrenches the exclusion of Palestinians from decisions about their own future”.
Protests
In April 2026, two protesters interrupted a speech by Banga at the Atlantic Council. The first protester described the Board of Peace as a sham. “It is a board of genocide not a board of peace,” she said. “And you talking about peace for Palestinians is a lie.”
“You are shaking hands with the devils of genocide, you need to resign,” she said. “Shame on you. You will be remembered for genocide.”
When she’d been taken out of the meeting by security guards, Banga defended the World Bank’s involvement. He said that a UN Security Council resolution had called on the Bank to work with the Board of Peace, including through the establishment of a dedicated trust fund.
But when UN Security Council Resolution 2803 was adopted in November 2025, little was known about Trump’s Board of Peace. As Julian Borger, a journalist with The Guardian, wrote, the UN “has found itself a victim of a classic bait-and-switch, thinking it was buying one thing, but getting quite another”.
When they voted to endorse the board of peace in November, other members of the UN security council hoped they were binding Trump into a Gaza peace process, but it now appears they were hoodwinked into backing a Trump-dominated pay-to-play club: a global version of his Mar-a-Lago court aimed at supplanting the UN itself.
In response to the protests at the Atlantic Council meeting in April 2026, Banga tried to play down the Bank’s involvement in the Board of Peace.
“Our role on the Board of Peace is very clear. We are a limited trustee of a trust fund that has been created into which these governments want to put in money to help the reconstruction,” Banga said. “That money would come into our trust fund, we would be the fiduciary that holds it, the Board of Peace will decide who to get the money from, the Board of Peace will decide how that money is used in projects on the ground.”
Given that we now know exactly what Trump’s Board of Peace is, this is appalling. The World Bank President is siding with Donald Trump, the fascist who started an illegal, pointless war in Iran shortly after launching his Board of Peace. The Bank’s involvement in the Board of Peace supports the ongoing genocide in Palestinian Territory.
Civil society demands World Bank withdraw from the Board of Peace
This week, more than 180 civil society organisations and human rights advocates have signed a statement to Ajay Banga, opposing the Bank’s involvement in the Board of Peace.
The full statement is available here and the full list of signatories is available here. The following is a summary sent to the Bank by email:
To: World Bank Office of the President, Senior Management and Board of Executive Directors
Cc: UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied Since 1967; UN Working Group on Business and Human RightsDear World Bank Group President Banga, Senior Management and Board of Executive Directors,
Amidst the illegal occupation, apartheid and ongoing genocide in Palestine, we – the undersigned civil society organizations and human rights advocates – express our unequivocal denunciation of the World Bank’s role in advancing an unlawful plan for ‘reconstruction’ in Gaza that fails to acknowledge the internationally recognized and inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination and freedom from foreign occupation, as well as to redress and reparations.
By joining the founding executive board of the Board of Peace (BoP) and taking on the role of limited Trustee for the BoP-associated Gaza Reconstruction and Development (GRAD) Financial Intermediary Fund (FIF), the World Bank is proactively enabling impunity for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide as well as colonial governance structures that entrench Israel’s illegal military occupation and apartheid in Palestine.
In the attached joint statement, we outline why it is incumbent upon the World Bank to urgently disassociate with the BoP and any related funding channels. In summary, the establishment of the BoP:
Violates international humanitarian and human rights laws, as well as provisional orders and advisory opinions of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), rulings of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and UN General Assembly Resolutions spanning nearly six decades;
Violates the World Bank’s own mandate and policies, and poses legal liability risks for the World Bank management;
Denies the Palestinian peoples’ collective rights to self-determination and to lead the way forward for reconstruction, recovery and justice;
Promotes dangerous notions that peace can be enforced through militarism and that reconstruction can move forward despite denying civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of an entire people, and
Enables an illegitimate, racialized and colonial governance model that serves the narrow corporate and geopolitical interests of its executive membership, while sidelining the realities of genocide-ravaged peoples and lands.
Accordingly, we call on the World Bank Group’s Board of Executive Directors and management, to:
Urgently withdraw the institution from the BoP and take immediate steps to terminate the GRAD FIF;
Publicly recognize the illegitimacy of any imposed reconstruction framework, and that rebuilding of peoples’ lives and livelihoods in Gaza cannot begin until Israeli Occupation Forces end the genocide of Palestinians and their illegal, decades-long occupation, siege, blockade and system of apartheid, in full compliance with the ICJ Provisional Measures and Advisory Opinions along with international human rights and humanitarian law;
Publicly promote and advocate for Palestinian-led reconstruction frameworks – including the Phoenix Plan – as the legitimate basis for any future process;
Publicly condemn the reprisals – including but not limited to US-initiated sanctions – against Palestinian human rights defenders and their allies, as per the World Bank’s commitment to zero tolerance for reprisals, and
Cooperate with UN Special Procedures, as well as avoid participating in structures that undermine the UN multilateral system.