On the morning of 5 November 2017, exactly one year ago this week, people around the world woke up to yet another shocking tax scandal. The Paradise Papers – released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists – included 13.4 million leaked files from the law firm Appleby and others. The documents revealed the tax dodging strategies of more than 100 multinational corporations, including Nike and Apple, as well as the offshore activities of more than 120 politicians and world leaders.

Against a backdrop of public protests, on 25 October the Argentinian government approved the 2019 budget including US$10 billion worth of cuts in essential areas such as education and public works. The next day, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) completed the first review of a loan agreement paving the way for the disbursement of a tranche of US$5.7 billion to the debt-stricken country. At the same time, the Board gave the green light to increase Argentina’s bailout loan to US$56.3 billion. However, this loan comes with a significant price tag.

Debt problems continue to burden countries on both sides of the Atlantic. Argentina has just agreed the highest ever International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan and risk premiums for Italian bonds have surged. This is the backdrop for a new report by the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly (EuroLat – a forum that brings together 150 parliamentarians from the two regions). The report joins growing demands for better institutions to help prevent and resolve debt crises.

With the country still reeling from the devastation of the Sulawesi tsunami, Indonesia played host to the Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Group (WBG), in Bali last week. The sobriety of the moment was reflected in gloomy forecasts from the IMF, which issued stark warnings of debt and trade risks to global growth. Meanwhile, controversy surrounded the World Bank’s new Human Capital Index; the 2019 World Development Report; and the ‘private finance first’ approach at the core of the Bank’s Maximising Finance for Development. CSOs and academics raised their voices to shine a light on the risks that the policies of the Bretton Woods Institutions (BWIs) posed to human rights and sustainable development across the Global South. Eurodad presented new research on the harmful impacts of Public-Private Partnerships and on IMF loan conditionality, and facilitated dialogue on better creditor coordination to solve debt crises.

This article was initially published in Eurodad member SLUG's newsletter

Ten years ago, on 15 September 2008, the US investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed. This collapse is largely seen as a key event of the North Atlantic financial crisis, which also had spillover effects on the rest of the world. Around the globe, this decade-long crisis has caused massive unemployment, as well as rising poverty and inequality. It has been used and abused to slash people’s rights – in particular the rights of workers – while the financial sector that caused the crisis has benefited from huge publicly funded bailouts. Ten years after the last crisis began, global debt levels are higher than before, and debt vulnerabilities are increasingly hard to manage. That’s why activists all over the world are standing up to call for fundamental reforms of the financial sector on 15 September 2018.

This is a Spanish version of the article: Argentina: 20 years on, has the IMF really changed its ways? It has been initially published at FARN website.

En julio, los argentinos experimentaron un déjà vu con los anuncios del gobierno de despidos masivos y congelamiento de salarios como parte de las medidas de ajuste ligadas a un préstamo del Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI). Miles de funcionarios públicos se ven obligados una vez más a asumir duras medidas de austeridad. De acuerdo con el programa del FMI se introducirán medidas selectivas de asistencia social para compensar la situación.

The G20 Finance Ministers of the world’s largest economies met in Buenos Aires last weekend, but their failure to tackle pressing global problems, including the threat of trade wars and a looming debt crisis, highlighted how ineffective the G20 has become.  Given that the G20 cannot tackle key issues, is promoting ineffective initiatives, and has largely become a rubber stamping body for other actors, the time is ripe to rethink how the global economy is governed, and to promote alternatives.

This article has also been published by Triple Crisis. 

Argentinians are experiencing deja-vu this month as the government announces massive layoffs and a hiring freeze as part of an adjustment package attached to a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Thousands of public servants are being forced yet again to swallow the bitter pill of austerity, which the IMF programme - published last Friday - aims to patch up through increased targeted social assistance.

The committee overseeing the UK government’s expenditure has published a searing report on Private Finance Initiatives (the UK version of Public Private Partnerships - PPPs). The Public Accounts Committee raises serious concerns about the “risks to value for money for the taxpayer” and identifies shortcomings in the assessment of their benefits. The report states that “it is unacceptable that after 25 years the Treasury still has no data on benefits to show the PPP model provides value for money”. The UK Treasury, meanwhile, continues to insist that it does. 

On 2 July, the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD DAC) will decide whether to change the rules on how debt relief is reported as Official Development Assistance (ODA). There is a serious risk that these changes could create loopholes allowing donors that use debt-based instruments to inflate their aid levels at the expense of the poorest countries.