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Eurodad Report Back: Bank/Fund and UN FfD meetings, Spring 2008

23 April 2008

This note brings you details of recent advocacy and intelligence gathering at the World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings in Washington and the Spring ECOSOC and FfD hearings in New York on some of Eurodad’s priority areas, specifically on:

• Odious debts and responsible finance;
• IMF conditionality;
• Aid effectiveness.

This is for your information, to circulate to colleagues/your constituency, and for action, e.g. on the scandalous conditionality that is blocking Burundi’s debt cancellation.

This year’s World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings were dominated by the issues of global climate change (in particular the Bank’s proposed Clean Technology and Strategic Climate Change Funds) , IMF governance reform and concerns over the effects that rising food prices are having on impoverished people.  Bretton Woods Project has produced a detailed summary of official discussions on the issues of climate change and IMF governance reform. See: www.brettonwoodsproject.org/art-561264.

At this year’s Bank/Fund Spring Meetings, Eurodad staff and members worked hard to raise the issues of illegitimate debt, responsible finance, economic policy conditionality and aid effectiveness in various fora. In its meeting with European Executive Directors (EDs) to the Word Bank, Eurodad raised the issue of the World Bank’s September 2007 discussion paper on odious debt and urged European Executive Directors to table the issue at Board level. Among Bank EDs, there was definitely a greater awareness of the issue of illegitimate debt but little political will to take any action. Although more open to discuss the topic than in previous years, there is broad satisfaction with international debt relief measures to date and a clear official tendency to look to the future for mechanisms to avoid future rounds of unsustainable and irresponsible debt.

In private discussions several European Development ministers pledged to raise the issue of the Bank’s failure to address economic policy conditionalities at the Development Committee. Yet it was announced by the World Bank in parallel that Burundi would not be granted completion point status under the HIPC Initiative because of its failure to privatise its coffee industry. Coffee represents the main source of export revenues to the country. This means that much-needed debt cancellation will be delayed until Burundi complies with this conditionality requirement. Eurodad urges members to write to their World Bank and IMF Executive Directors – using a template letter we have prepared – to insist that this decision is overturned.

Finally, the World Bank announced that it is initiating a consultation process on consultation processes and would publish further information on how civil society organisations can become involved. The Bank’s stated aim is to assess how to improve its engagement with CSOs in the future to ensure they are able to input meaningfully – and at the right times – into policy formulation.

Below is a more detailed update of the main discussions and developments on some of these issues.

Eurodad Report on Spring Meetings : 48,3 Kb