Mountain Gorilla
Virunga National Park, Congo |
"What are the World Bank and the IMF for? Is it time we did away with them?"Or, at least, it was something to that effect. The reason I can't quote the question exactly, is because it was later edited....
The answers to the question remain, but the question has been replaced with one targeting Paul Wolfowitz alone, the now ex-president of the World Bank, and not the organisation itself. Check out the 'Readers Recommended' answers to the question yourself, and you'll see they don't match.
I remember, at the time, thinking "what a pertinent question for the mainstream media to be asking". Someone obviously put some pressure on the BBC to target the man instead of the organisation. However, I would like to put the question to our readers regardless.
And, in an unashamed and semi-obvious bid to put answers into your head, I'm supplying the following clip and info to help stimulate thought.
And, in case you're wondering why thousands of people have gathered and protested at the G8, the following may help in connection with this:
If we don't do something about the institutionalised rape of the environment and the poorer peoples of the earth by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation, our light-bulb changing and walking/cycling to work, etc., will never be sufficient to offset the grand scale of destruction these guys inflict upon the earth.The IMF and World Bank have been empowered by the governments which control it (led by the U.S., the U.K., Japan, Germany, France, Canada, and Italy -- the "Group of 7," which holds over 40% of the votes on their boards) with imposing economic austerity policies in the countries of the so-called "Third World" or "global South." Once Southern countries build up large external debts, as most have, they cannot get credit or cash anywhere else and are forced to go to these international institutions and accept whatever conditions are demanded of them. None of the countries has emerged from their debt problems; indeed most countries now have much higher levels of debt than when they first accepted IMF/World Bank "assistance."
The IMF/World Bank conditions -- "structural adjustment programs" -- force Southern countries to promote sweatshops, exports to rich countries, and high-return cash investment. The resulting increase in international commerce -- corporate globalization -- led to demands by corporations and investors for ways to lock in their privileges and protection against the perceived danger of governments seizing assets or imposing new regulations. The WTO was the answer to those demands, an institution whose secret tribunals can overrule national laws if they are found to violate the rights of corporations.
The World Bank is best known for financing big projects like dams, roads, and power plants, supposedly designed to assist in economic development, but which have often been associated with monumental environmental devastation and social dislocation. In recent years, about half of its lending has gone to programs indistinguishable from the IMF's: austerity plans that "reform" economic policies by suffocating the poor and inviting corporate exploitation.Although the IMF finally got some of the criticism due it with the East Asian financial crisis (where it imposed austerity programs on South Korea, Indonesia, and Thailand), the two institutions continue to be the chosen tools of the political and business elites for ruling the global economy, and run, to one degree or another, about 90 Southern countries' economies. These countries are forced to adopt policies even more committed to deregulation and withdrawal of government from insuring public welfare than those in the U.S. Considering how impoverished many of these countries were to start with, the effects of these policies have been predictably devastating. The of "emerging market success stories" we sometimes read about generate wealth which goes to very small segments of the populations, and much of it ends up in the North. The great majority of the people of the South are enduring increased poverty, decreased access to basic services, and decreased control over their own economies. - Global Exchange
Further Reading:
