NETWORKERS SOUTH

3 april Reaksjoner på G20-møtets IMF-overføringer

Robert Weissman, director of Essential Action, a Washington, DC-based
corporate accountability group. Available at: + 1 202-387-8030

Thirty years ago, much less severe global economic troubles kicked off a
debt crisis and a failed experiment in market fundamentalist policy
making that thwarted and even rolled back development throughout most of
Africa and Latin America for two decades, with terrible social cost. The
IMF was at the center of this decades-long disaster. It would be an
inexcusable tragedy to repeat that history.

No new money should flow to or through the IMF without the achievement
first of significant, verifiable changes in Fund policy -- changes going
far beyond governance reforms. Specific policy measures that should be
agreed upon in advance of a commitment of new resources to the IMF
include: more macroeconomic flexibility, regarding both fiscal and
monetary policy for developing countries; a guarantee that countries
will have flexibility to expand healthcare and education spending,
irrespective of budget caps; a prohibition on financial deregulation as
an IMF conditionality or policy recommendation.

Amy Gray, IFI Education Policy Officer, Global Campaign for Education.
Available at: + 1 202-468-7932

Infusing the IMF with $1 trillion or using proceeds from IMF gold sales
for low income countries will not achieve the necessary development and
anti-poverty impacts the developing world so urgently needs in this time
of global financial crisis unless substantive reforms to IMF
macroeconomic policies go hand in hand with the money. Funneling global
taxpayers' money through the IMF's PRGF is not going to help poor people
but rather continue the same pro-cyclical policies the IMF enforces
through that instrument. The IMF macro0economic policies in low-income
countries must be substantively reformed, and aligned to support efforts
to scale up education and health sectors in the world's poorest places.

Neil Watkins, Executive Director of Jubilee USA Network. Available at:
+ 1 202-783-0129

The G20 have rightly called on the IMF to devote some of the proceeds
from gold sales to support the poorest countries, but the proposal needs
significant improvement before the IMF meetings later this month. IMF
gold sales should be expanded and proceeds from the sale should be used
for debt relief or grants without harmful conditions -- not to further
indebt some of the world's poorest nations.

Deborah James, Director of International Programs, Center for Economic
and Policy Research. Available at: 202-293-5380 x111

It is now up to the U.S. Congress to use its leverage over potential
increased IMF funding to ensure that the IMF -- which currently imposes
harsh conditionalities which will exacerbate the recession in recipient
countries -- instead allows developing countries to use the same
expansionary fiscal and monetary policies the G-20 has called for worldwide.

Bhumika Muchhala, Third World Network, available at:
bhumika.muchhala@gmail.com. See referenced analysis here:
<http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/finance/2009/twninfofinance20090302.htm>

The G20 communique states that it will make available $850 billion to
the global financial institutions in order to "support emerging market
and developing countries by helping to finance counter-cyclical
spending, bank recapitalisation, infrastructure, trade finance, balance
of payments support, debt rollover, and social support."

However, the Third World Network's analysis of the nine most recent IMF
loans to countries affected by the crisis clearly demonstrates that the
IMF is still prescribing pro-cyclical policies of fiscal and monetary
policy tightening. The Fund's crisis loans still contain the old policy
conditions of cutting public sector expenditures, reducing fiscal
deficits and increasing interest rates -- which is the stark opposite of
the expansionary, stimulus policies being supported in the G20 countries.

Asia Russell, Director of International Policy, Health GAP (Global
Access Project), Available at: + 1 Deb 267-475-2645

For years the IMF has imposed disastrous conditions on poor countries
that have contributed to massive underinvestment in health, HIV/AIDS and
education, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. The G20 must make sure
the IMF abandons these policies before infusing the Fund with hundreds
of billions of dollars in new resources.

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