Protests against IMF sweeping the South, says report

Broad-based resistance has sprung up throughout the developing world to the IMF and World Bank’s ruinous policy dictates.

by Samanta Sen

LONDON: Protests against the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) have intensified in developing countries over the past year, development advocates here said on 19 April.

The economic and political impact of the agencies’ policy prescriptions sparked 77 major protests in 23 poor countries in 2001, up from 50 protests in 13 countries over 10 months the preceding year, said the World Development Movement (WDM). Riot police intervened to shut down 18 of last year’s protests; 76 people were killed and thousands injured, the group added.

Developing countries have “a broad-based protest movement that is challenging the harmful economic policies promoted by the IMF and the World Bank”, WDM said in a report timed to coincide with the lending institutions’ 20-21 April spring meetings in Washington.

The report, “States of Unrest II: Resistance to IMF and World Bank Policies in Poor Countries 2001”, updates a similar report released in September 2000, on the eve of the IMF and World Bank annual meetings in Prague.

Looking back on 2001, the new report cited the examples of:

   *  Argentina, where tens of thousands of workers took to the streets to protest the IMF’s demand for a 13% cut in public spending - including salaries - in exchange for a $21 billion bailout.

   *  Ecuador, which saw massive protests throughout the year against austerity measures agreed between the government and the IMF. These included a 60% increase in the price of cooking gas. A 14-year-old boy was among those killed during the protests.

   *  Turkey, where thousands demonstrated against bank restructuring and privatization of state-owned enterprises - both IMF prescriptions.

The protests shared in common a fundamental sense that the IMF was undermining national governments with its “one-size-fits-all blueprint of economic development”, said WDM researcher and report author Mark Ellis-Jones. “The IMF claims to put poverty reduction at the centre of its policies but we have to ask how deep its commitment goes when the world’s poor, those closest to the policies on the ground, are its fiercest critics.”

According to the report, about one-third of last year’s protests were directed specifically at the IMF and the World Bank. In most instances, “people remain detached from these unaccountable international institutions and protest is still predominantly directed at national institutions, which are responsible for implementing the policies domestically.”

Far from being limited to the poor, the ranks of the protestors include “the newly emerging middle classes: teachers, civil servants, priests, doctors, public sector workers, trade union activists and owners of small businesses,” the report said.

Key concerns of these groups include economic policies - including privatization and market liberalization - that result in job losses and consequent social problems, according to WDM.

Given the limited choice between adopting policies ill-suited to their countries’ welfare  and risking economic isolation, the report said, “many governments choose the IMF over their own people.”

“Policies intended to promote economic development and poverty reduction in the emerging and fragile economies of developing countries are not only failing, but are actually leading to economic stagnation, which is felt across the social spectrum,” the report added.

The policies that have spawned resentment across the developing world used to be known as structural adjustment programmes, or SAPs. Now, they are enshrined in documents known as poverty reduction strategy papers, or PRSPs. Introduced in 1999, these include the same policy prescriptions as those found in the old SAPs “couched in the rhetoric of development,” the report said. (IPS)                                                        

From TWE No. 279 (16-30 April 2002)