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International Financial Institutions


Background

 

We call on donor governments and Institutions to establish a fair and just world order in which International Financial Institutions (especially WB, IMF and WTO) operate within the broad principles enshrined under UN commitments and human rights obligations to better regulate world economy.

GCAP Beirut platform, 15 March 2006

Debt kills Indonesian BabiesConditions imposed by the World Bank and IMF on poor countries, including forcing privatisation of services or cutting spending, enforcing trade liberalisation, are disempowering people. IMF and World Bank conditions also take decision making away from local people and instead puts it in the hands of Washington based bureaucrats. Civil society organisations, parliaments and governments often find that they are unable to make choices about their policies because the policies have already been set by the World Bank and IMF. For example, decisions on budget allocations to health and education are often limited by IMF imposed spending ceilings.

The governance structures of the World Bank and IMF also give poor countries very little say in how the institutions are run. G8 countries dominate the boards of both institutions – the UK has a greater voting share than the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa, for example. At the Annual Meetings, the IMF board is likely to approve some increases in voting shares for middle income countries such as Mexico, Turkey and South Korea, but at the moment any increase in voting shares for Africa is highly unlikely.

 

Stunt IFI Singapore 2006

The GCAP actions focus on ensuring any reform gives the poor a greater voice in the decision-making process of the IMF and the World Bank and in setting country-owned development paths without the imposition of harmful economic policy conditions.

 

 

IMF

 

See GCAP IFI actions

 

 

To know more

 

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