Time for the World Bank and IMF to Be the Solution, Not the Problem

Franciscka Lucien is Executive Director of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti. Joel Curtain is the Director of Advocacy at Partners in Health.By Franciscka Lucien and Joel CurtainPORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti and BOSTON, May 7 2020 (IPS) The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have a historic opportunity to help stabilize a world reeling from COVID-19. Doing so will require the institutions to change course and aggressively support poor countries’ ability to invest broadly in the government services their populations need. The pandemic is exposing the consequences of four decades of reduced public spending in the Global South, much of it mandated by the World Bank and the IMF (often called “International Financial Institutions” or “IFIs”). Those consequences were already painfully apparent to people in Latin America, the Middle East and elsewhere, who were massively protesting the loss of public services until the pandemic kept them home. Starting in the 1970s, the IFIs imposed loan conditions via “structural adjustment programs” that forced sharp cuts in government spending in developing countries and constrained their ability to tax, to regulate business and to protect workers. These programs forced significant reductions in public health, education, agricultural support and other important social and economic programs. Structural adjustment also transferred power from national governments, which are accountable to their citizens, to cor...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Aid Economy & Trade Education Financial Crisis Global Headlines Health Humanitarian Emergencies Labour Latin America & the Caribbean TerraViva United Nations Source Type: news