The official site of the World Bank explains the role of the bank and its sister organisations. Aside from regional briefings and news, there is a list of bank publications and news releases.

The International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group, provides exhaustive coverage of IFC loan and equity financing projects for the private sector in the developing world. There is an up-to-date list of speeches by leading IMF figures and extensive coverage of IFC's projects and policies. It also has a comprehensive emerging markets database.

The Debt Initiative for Highly Indebted Poor Countries(HIPC) is another of the World Bank's sister organisations.

It is concerned with alleviating the debt burden of developing countries to sustainable levels. Click on Country Cases for the latest "debt news" stories. It also has excellent links to progress reports and related papers from the World Bank.

The home of the International Monetary Fund details the role and work of the organisation.

It has extensive coverage of the IMF's finances, the latest news releases and a "What's New" section. Featured topics include the complete international capital markets report.

The official site of the Opec Fund profiles the organisation's aims of helping developing countries through the form of grants and loans. Poor navigation and a lack of detailed content hinder this site, but the organisation has promised an upgrade shortly. However there is an informative section on the operations of the Opec Fund that's worth a look.

Unctad provides wide ranging content on the organisation's plans to increase trade, investment and development opportunities in emerging markets.

An excellent section on "technical cooperation" details Unctad's programmes.

Also, click on the "publications and documents" section for the latest Unctad reports.

The Inter-American Development Bank site highlights the bank's aim of hastening economic and social development in Latin America and the Caribbean. It has good quality coverage of the bank's latest projects and statistical information.

The Asian Development Bank site provides an overview of the bank's loan and development projects throughout the region. There is also a valuable catalogue of economic data on developing member countries including some interesting statistics on Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.