“Stop the Harm, Reparations Now!”
Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) from more than 50 countries, today rallied anew behind the call targeting the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, in the lead-up to the international financial institutions’ (IFIs) annual meetings in Washington DC. Launching the Global Days of Action against the IFIs, they decried the 80th anniversary of the IMF and World Bank as “eight decades of debt and destruction” and “no cause for celebration” especially for countries of the Global South.
Heading the demands is a reiteration of the call for debt cancellation in the face of swifter public debt accumulation post-COVID 19 and an ever-threatening debt debacle. From the World Bank’s own data, debt stocks from 2012 – 2022 of Low-Income and Middle-Income countries (LMICs) rose by 109% and 58%, respectively. Debt service on public and publicly guaranteed debt service payments reached $443.5 billion in 2022, the highest level thus far and projected to increase further.
“The IMF and the World Bank celebrate their 80 years at a time of crushing debt burdens for the Global South,” said Lidy Nacpil, Coordinator of the Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD). They remain key actors of the Group of 7, the world’s richest countries, in worsening the climate and debt catastrophes. It is high time for these institutions to stop peddling more debts as solutions to crises, including the climate emergency caused by rich countries, and imposing their neoliberal policies and conditionalities of privatization and trade liberalization that violate peoples’ rights and intensify the climate emergency, while ensuring massive profits for big business.”
Attesting to the dire situation in many Global South countries, Praman Adhikari of the South Asia Alliance for Poverty Eradication (SAAPE) said: “The formation of the World Bank and IMF, intended to foster global economic stability, has tragically failed to protect people’s livelihoods. In South Asia, millions of children suffer from hunger and malnutrition, stunting their growth and potential. Despite, or because of more than four decades of neoliberal policies, the region faces rampant hunger, unemployment, and staggering inequality. This economic model, driven by the ‘Washington Consensus,’ has deepened human misery and deprivation, benefiting the crisis-ridden Western world at the expense of the people of the Global South. It is imposed through structural adjustments, not democratic consensus, and results in exacerbating the plight of the most vulnerable.”
Foregrounding the debt crisis in Africa, the Executive Director of the African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD) Jason Braganza pointed to how governments are trading off public and social investment for debt servicing under close watch by the IMF and the World Bank. “This is an indictment of these leading institutions. They are not friends of the peoples of the Global South but the custodians of securing returns for global north capital.”
Braganza noted that the 80th anniversary of the IMF and WB should also serve as “a sober reminder how much further we have to go to achieve liberation from the shackles of Western Neo-Liberal Capitalism. These two institutions are not fit for purpose if Africa is to transform from Rule-taker to Rule-maker.”
Shereen Talaat, Director of the MenaFem Movement for Economic Development and Ecological Justice stressed that “it is crucial to recognize that their policies have consistently deepened inequality, particularly harming women and marginalised communities across the Global South.”
Calling attention to failed solutions promoted by the IFIs, Global Advocacy Director of Latindadd (Latin American Network for Economic and Social Justice) cautioned that “we are seeing a growing appetite for short-term approaches to tackle the debt, climate and development crises, that will only worsen the situation and the consequences, especially for the most vulnerable people of the Global South.” She added that “countries do not need to defer the costs of the crisis with stop-gap measures; they need immediate debt cancellation, while also addressing the imperative need of reforming the international financial architecture towards a fairer and equitable one.”
This was echoed by the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) which called attention to the eighty-five per cent of the world’s population (over 6.3 billion people) that is estimated to be impacted by IMF-WB’s adverse austerity measures: “The continued violation of women’s human rights resulting from IMF-WB’s austerity measures is evidence of the false nature of its own ambitious ‘Gender Strategy’ and ‘Women’s Economic Empowerment’ initiatives; austerity measures remove safeguards that ensure decent work, wage and job security for women, majority of whom are often concentrated in precarious, informal, unregulated jobs and rely on government interventions through labour, fiscal and industrial rules and regulations.”
Concrete steps including “a fundamental restructuring of their missions and visions is vital,” said Lolanda Fresnillo, Policy and Advocacy manager for debt justice of the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad). “Their obsession with austerity and market-oriented solutions must end, and their unequal governance must be revamped.” Demanding Development Justice for marginalised communities, including workers, farmers, indigenous peoples, especially women and children, APWLD also demanded that the governments behind the IMF-WB “cancel the debts, end conditionalities, and instead adopt a people-centred, rights-based approach for sustainable development of the countries of the Global South.”
In support of the demands of the Global Days of Action for debt, economic and climate justice, Talaat stressed the urgency of the call “for an immediate shift toward an economic model rooted in justice, equality, and sustainability, rejecting the harmful austerity and structural adjustment programs imposed for decades. Our fight continues, especially during the Global Days of Action, to build a more equitable future.”
Read the full text of the Sign-On statement for the Global Days of Action against the IMF and the World Bank here: https://debtgwa.net/GlobalDaysOfAction2024