Civil society at the Annual Meetings of the World Bank-IMF
#WBGMeetings #IMFMeetings #AMCSO23 #CanceltheDebt #EndAusterity
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Civil society at the Annual Meetings of the World Bank-IMF
Next week, Eurodad staff will join members and partners at the World Bank-IMF Annual Meetings, taking place in Marrakech, Morocco. It is only the second time in the institutions' history that they will convene in Africa. It offers a unique opportunity for African civil society - together with the global economic justice movement - to draw attention to the specific challenges the continent faces, caused by the failures of IFI policy and governance reform.
In a world facing multiple crises, leaders are under increasing pressure to reform a global financial architecture that is no longer fit for purpose.
Eurodad will be calling out the ineffectiveness of action to tackle the debt crisis that is consuming many of the world's poorest countries, while promoting the alternatives that we believe will ensure a timely, fair and transparent debt workout mechanism. We will support the global call to end crippling austerity policies; and we will be exposing the multiple failings in the World Bank's so-called Evolution Roadmap.
In the link below you will find a range of events co-organised by Eurodad, including several where our staff will appear on panels. During the week we will also be taking part in several events, including the End Austerity Festival this Saturday. Follow us on Twitter @eurodad.
See also below reports by our members and partners that shed more light on the issues that will be discussed next week.
Reports
How are the IMF and the World Bank Shaping Climate Policy? Lessons from Pakistan
by Alliance for Climate Justice and Clean Energy, Alternative Law Collective and Recourse
This report examines the limitations of the World Bank Group’s Climate Change Action Plan and the IMF’s Climate Change Strategy and assesses the negative impacts of climate-related interventions in Pakistan in the last decades.
Decoding Debt Justice
by Center for Economic and Social Rights and Debt Justice
This is a guide for anyone who wants to understand how the global debt crisis is harming people’s rights. It’s based on the belief that if we want to change the status quo, we need to bring together a wider range of expertise—both technical and lived. It introduces Decoding Injustice, which organises innovative research methods around three steps: interrogate; illuminate; and inspire. These methods can be adapted for use by a wide range of groups. Combined, they help build evidence that strengthens demands for those in power to live up to their promises and right the wrongs of systemic oppression.
The Bretton Woods Project has published three reports ahead of the Annual Meetings:
Assessing the Bretton Woods Institutions’ legacy: Critical views from the MENA region and Sub-Saharan Africa
This collection of essays, written by regional authors, argues that the hardships faced by the region’s poor and marginalised, and the development challenges faced by its states, are to a significant degree the result of current and historic IMF and World Bank policies and programmes, which support an unjust and extractionist world economic order.
Financialisation and human rights in the Middle East and North Africa
Over the last generation, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have facilitated the financialisation of international development, driving the restructuring of MENA economies to prioritise international financial interests over their own populations. This briefing is part of the BWP’s Financialisation and Human Rights project and is based on extracts from a report, which will be released later this year.
Reconceptualising Special Drawing Rights as a tool for development finance
This briefing examines the shortcomings of the current SDRs allocation system and calls to reform them by considering general allocations periodically, using clearly defined criteria, and decoupling SDRs from quotas, to ensure their targeted, needs-based and equitable distribution.
Useful resources
New Book: Deuda feminista - ¿Utopía u oxímoron? (direct English translation: Feminist Debt - Utopia or oxymoron?)
This book, co-authored by Eurodad's Leia Achampong and Iolanda Fresnillo, demonstrates that debt, austerity and other orthodox economic policies generally have a negative impact on human rights, particularly for women. The macroeconomic policies that the IMF usually promotes and that many governments adopt - particularly in the current situation - benefit only a few, harming the majority of households and women. The book does not stop at the diagnosis: it offers an important agenda to dismantle gender inequalities in the field of public debt.
Read the book in Spanish here.
The English version will be available shortly.
UK’s development finance ‘harming society and the environment’: civil society organisations respond to critical report by UK Parliamentary International Development Committee
The recent report by the International Development Committee (IDC) of the UK House of Commons, entitled ‘Investment for development - The UK’s Strategy towards Development Finance Initiatives,’ raises major questions about the UK’s investments as part of development. Civil society organisations are particularly concerned about the British International Investment’s (BII) activities and impacts in key sectors responsible for delivering human rights including education and health.
Bandage on a Bullet Wound: IMF Social Spending Floors and the Covid-19 Pandemic
by Human Rights Watch
This report analyzes 39 IMF loan programs approved between March 2020, the official start of the Covid-19 pandemic, and March 2023 under three lending facilities that include conditionalities—the Extended Credit Facility (ECF), Extended Fund Facility (EFF), and Stand-By Arrangement (SBA)—to understand how the IMF is approaching the current crisis in practice and to assess the extent to which it aligns with international human rights standards.
Roadblocks to Accountability: Addressing the accessibility crisis in the AIIB’s review of its Project-affected People’s Mechanism
by Reality of Aid Network
This report analyses the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’s Independent Accountability Mechanism, the Project-affected People’s Mechanism (PPM), now in its fifth year of existence and nearing its policy-mandated review. The objective of the report is to identify and set out the major challenges project-affected communities have faced in accessing remedies before the PPM so that they are addressed in the upcoming review.
Vacancies
Policy & Advocacy Manager (Development Finance)
Bond | London | Deadline: 10 October
Policy & Advocacy Adviser (Development Finance)
Bond | London | Deadline: 10 October
Events
10 October | The Foundational Economy: Putting public liveability at the heart of EU public finance
by Counter Balance
This webinar will explore how European public finance and the EIB are fixating on using public money to support new clean tech fixes under a technocratic and profit-driven agenda for change to sustain the status quo. Instead, bottom-up innovations which increase residual income for households and provide quality public services and social infrastructure are needed - all of which jointly determine foundational liveability. The cost of living crisis is depriving especially low and middle income households from these basic necessities to live a decent life. The webinar will feature a presentation on Counter Balance’s recent report Things Have to Change, and a discussion with both academic experts and on-the-ground politicians on how a foundational economy can be best implemented.
Register for the webinar here.
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This newsletter has been produced with co-funding from the European Union, Bread for the World and Norad. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of Eurodad and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the funders. |
