IFIwatchnet - Documents

Pakistan needs debt cancellation, not new IMF loans

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 04:12:02 -0500

August 26th, 2010, by Nuria Molina, Eurodad Unprecedented flooding this month is pushing Pakistan to the brink of collapse. Widespread devastation will require massive external financing to meet the basic needs of six million homeless and 20 million affected overall. However, the response by the World Bank and the IMF threatens to pile new debts on a country where, before the flooding, debt interest payments already consumed about one third of budget revenues. Instead, the international community should provide more grants, not loans, to help Pakistan withstand the disaster.

Conditionality in World Bank crisis lending to Ghana

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 10:24:53 -0500

August 2nd, 2010, by Eurodad

This briefing examines conditions in World Bank lending to Ghana in 2009. The briefing concludes that while the overall number of conditions in World Bank loans has gone down on average, some countries, such as Ghana, still experience a high number of conditions in their loans in crucial sectors of the economy.

World Bank says foreign investors are crowding out African producers

admin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:52:36 -0500

July 28th., by Katie Allen (The Guardian)

Leaked report says wealthy investors are threatening local resources as they buy up farmland to gain on commodity prices

After a spate of investments in African land by sovereign wealth funds looking for gains on rising commodity prices and by countries such as China worried about their own food security, the World Bank launched research into the area. Its report is due to be published next month, but a draft copy leaked to the Financial Times painted a picture of largely speculative investment badly lacking agricultural expertise, and a rush towards countries with lax laws. It mentioned only a handful of successes.

Alternatives to negotiating sovereign debt

admin — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 12:51:13 -0500

July 21, By Tirivangani Mutazu, AFRODAD

Although not all Heavily Indebted Poor countries (HIPC 1999) have benefited from the debt relief initiative and the subsequent Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI 2005), these processes have left us with many enduring lessons. These lessons include the fundamental fact that such relief initiatives are not sustainable.

Violence against people and nature prompts barricades from Russian activists as 8bn euros motorway plans press on

admin — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0500

July 19, CEE Bankwatch

Representatives from Russian non-governmental organisation Movement to Defend Khimki Forest have today erected blockades and plan to continue their defence of the protected Khimki Forest area on Moscow's northern outskirts against construction on one section [1] of the 8 billion euro Moscow-St. Petersburg motorway.

IMF tells Japanese government to raise consumption tax despite election defeat

admin — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 12:45:12 -0500

17 July 2010, By John Chan

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) this week told the Japanese government to push ahead with increasing the rate of the consumption tax, despite the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) losing its majority in the upper house of the Diet in last Sunday’s elections.

The defeat for the DPJ government headed by new Prime Minister Naoto Kan was a direct result of mounting public opposition to his proposed doubling of the 5 percent tax, and other austerity measures, in order to avoid a Greece-style debt crisis.

We Need Sustainable Development Banks, Say NGOs

admin — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 10:37:27 -0500

MEXICO CITY, Jul 5, 2010 (IPS)

Non-governmental organisations from across the Americas are demanding that the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank institute policies that favour sustainable energy and help mitigate climate change.

The IMF's policy advisory role to the G20

admin — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:05:39 -0500

June 25th 2010 by Bretton Woods Project

The G20 has turned to the IMF to operate as a research and advisory body on their behalf since those governments’ leaders first met in November 2008. The IMF’s work in this area has mainly fallen in three areas: technical advice, surveillance, and research.

G20 mutual assessment process and the IMF

IMF input into the G20 has largely been considered technical assistance or technical advice. Work of this type is provided for in the IMF Articles of Agreement, on the basis that the IMF is not mandated to perform it and it is also voluntary for the member country concerned. Under the provisions of the IMF’s transparency policy there is no presumption that this technical advisory work will be publicly disclosed.

A Critical Assessment of Chinese Development Assistance in Africa

fiona — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 01:08:24 -0500

AFRODAD is implementing a research under the theme A Critical Assessment of Chinese Development Assistance in Africa: The case of Ethiopia and Cameroon You are invited to submit expression of interest to undertake this research in the respective counries on behalf of AFRODAD.

Alternatives to negotiate sovereign debt –Any movement towards Fair and Transparent Arbitration mechanism

fiona — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 00:40:39 -0500

Although not all heavily indebted poor countries, the HIPCs, have benefited from the HIPC (1999) debt relief initiative and the subsequent Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI 2005) we have been left with many lessons of enduring these processes. The lessons include the fundamental fact that these relief initiatives are not sustainable. The following might be some of the reasons for that. Firstly they are creditor led with decisions about who could and could not get debt relief being made by creditors on premises that sometimes arearbitrary.