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Slamming the World Bank and the IMF Robert Wiseman Over 170 activists in non-governmental organizations (NGO's) from 53 countries and six continents came together in late September in Washington, D.C., to denounce the policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Meeting concurrently with the World Bank/IMF annual meetings, the People's Network for Eco Development sharply criticized the social and environmental impacts of Bank and IMF programs and mapped out strategies to counter the Bank and IMF's agenda. Activists blasted the Bank and the Fund's structural adjustment policies, which force governments to cut back social programs, devalue currencies and privatize state-owned enterprises, for devastating Third World economies and exacerbating the suffering of the poor. “Everywhere on the ground, people are saying (to the Bank and IMF), 'take your money back home,”” said Vandana Shiva of the Research Institute for Natural Resource Policy in India. Future historians will “record that the Bank cares about nothing beyond increasing its own power,” stated Shiva. “The Bank cares nothing about whether people live or die.” Joan French of the Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action focused on the effect of structural adjustment policies on women. “Women are central to World Bank and IMF policies,” she said. When schools and hospitals are closed an a result of structural adjustment policies, “It is women who take up the slack ... (The Bank and IMF) depend on the unpaid labour of women.” Leonar Briones of the Philippines Freedom From Debt Coalition explained how the privatization of government enterprises, promoted by the Bank and Fund, furthers foreign dominance in Third World countries. With the World Bank's agreement, she said, the Philippines is supposed to complete the privatization of government entities in five years. But, she asked, “who (dominates) the private sector in the Philippines?” The answer: “Foreign interests. So privatization (leads to) the entrenchment of elites and the expansion of foreign control.” The activists also targeted the projects funded by the World Bank,
which have had disastrous effects on the environment and entire
communities. Environmentalists focused on the Sardar Sarovar Project,
a dam project on India's Narmada River, as an example of the effects
of World Bank sponsored development ventures. The Sardar Sarovar
Project, just one part of a larger effort in the Narmada Valley,
will force the relocation of approximately 100,000 people and submerge
vast tracts of fertile farmland and forests. Third World activists charged that many Northern environmentalists ignore the fact that people are hurt by the World Bank, the IMF and the international debt crisis. “It is not only the environment which pays for debt, it is people, “ stated Briones. Northern environmental NGO's have “a tendency to discuss the environment in terms of 'natural resource management,”' said Uganda's Charles Abugre, and thus ignore the international interests of the people who live in the environment they want to protect. Harry Sakulas of the Way Ecology Institute in Papua New Guinea identified Conservation International and the World Wildlife Fund as two groups guilty of adopting a resource management approach. He said they have worked with the much criticized World-Bank-sponsored Tropical Forest Action Plan to develop a forestry management plan for Papua New Guinea without consultation with Papua New Guineans. Many participants found the airing of such grievances constructive. Doug Hellinger of the Development Group for Alternative Priorities said that “groups in the South helped groups in the North see that the economic policies being pushed by the (IMF and World Bank) are the underlying causes of social demise and environmental degradation.” Hellinger says the NGO campaign against the policies of the World Bank and IMF “is much more comprehensive and sophisticated” than it was a few years ago, and he expects that “over time a more coordinated and aggressive campaign will emerge to not only push these institutions, but to put forward an alternative (development model) emerging from the ground” in Third World countries. From One Sky Report for March 1991. (CX5079)
Subject Headings Environment/Developing Countries Environment/International Environmental Economics Environmental Impacts International Monetary Fund (IMF) Privatization Social Impact Assessment Structural Adjustment World Bank
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