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.
Publicly-backed Private Finance
G20 game over? Three reasons why the Finance Ministers’ meeting shows the G20’s time may be up
- Publicly-backed Private Finance
Argentina: 20 years on, has the IMF really changed its ways?
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.
- Publicly-backed Private Finance
Civil Society Organisations’ open letter to World Bank on PPPs
Last October, more than 150 organisations signed a PPP Global Campaign Manifesto, expressing our alarm at the increasing use of PPPs to deliver infrastructure projects and public services around the world, and in particular the World Bank’s role in promoting these contracts. Our combined evidence shows that the experience of PPPs has been negative, and few PPPs have delivered results in the public interest. Our concerns are echoed by many more organisations and individuals across the world, who are alarmed by the risk that this represents for developing countries.
- Publicly-backed Private Finance
- Global Processes
ODA and Private Sector Instruments: new rules raise major concerns
Moves towards the greater involvement of the private sector in Official Development Assistance (ODA, or "aid") could have a negative impact on the quality and quantity of development aid.
- Publicly-backed Private Finance
Public-Private Partnerships: Global Campaign Manifesto
PPPs (also known as Private Finance Initiatives, or PFIs) are essentially long-term contracts, underwritten by government guarantees, under which the private sector builds (and sometimes runs) major infrastructure projects or services traditionally provided by the state, such as hospitals, schools, roads, railways, water, sanitation and energy.
- Publicly-backed Private Finance
A 10-point roadmap for Europe on the role of the private sector in development
European governments and the European Commission have been increasingly supporting a greater role for the private sector in their development cooperation.
- Publicly-backed Private Finance
- CONCORD
Public-Private Partnerships: Defusing the ticking time bomb.
A new briefing from Eurodad reveals how the increased promotion of public-private partnerships (PPPs) by the World Bank and others is having a disastrous impact on both developed and developing countries.
- Publicly-backed Private Finance
Double standards: How the UK promotes rip-off health PPPs abroad’
The Jubilee Debt Campaign has released the report: ‘Double standards: How the UK promotes rip-off health PPPs abroad’ (24 pages, with a 4 page executive summary).
- Publicly-backed Private Finance
- Jubilee Debt Campaign
Reclaiming Public Services: How cities and citizens are turning back privatisation
Reclaiming Public Services is vital reading for anyone interested in the future of local, democratic services like energy, water and health care. This is an in-depth world tour of new initiatives in public ownership and the variety of approaches to deprivatisation.
- Publicly-backed Private Finance
- TNI
The UK’s PPPs Disaster: Lessons on private finance for the rest of the world
The UK was one of the first countries to develop PPPs in the early 1990s, and its PPP programme, known as the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), subsequently expanded across all parts of public spending including healthcare, education and the military.
- Publicly-backed Private Finance
- Jubilee Debt Campaign