[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Africa: World Bank Protests/Policy

[Alfred Kagan]

>To: akagan at uiuc.edu
>Subject: Africa: World Bank Protests/Policy
>From: africafocus at igc.org
>Sender: World Wide Web Owner <www at africafocus.org>
>Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 17:08:34 -0700
>
>
>Africa: World Bank Protests/Policy
>
>AfricaFocus Bulletin
>Apr 13, 2004 (040413)
>(Reposted from sources cited below)
>
>Editor's Note 
>
>Controversies about the World Bank, which marks 60 years with its
>spring meetings this month, are attracting less attention than the
>high-profile debates about Iraq and terrorism. The Bank's policies
>and programs, nevertheless, have profound effects on countries
>around the world, and particularly in Africa. Both protesters and
>other critics remain skeptical of this powerful institution's
>claims to be fighting poverty and contributing to development.  
>
>This issue of AfricaFocus Bulletin contains (1) the call to
>demonstrations in Washington later this month, endorsed by more
>than 130 organizations in the U.S. and around the world, (2) brief
>commentaries from the Bretton Woods Project on current policy
>issues at the World Bank, including reports from Malawi and Zambia,
>and (3) links to other sources on current World Bank policy issues.
>
>Another AfricaFocus Bulletin sent out today has selected background
>information on the Bank's own Extractive Industries Review. This
>review has resulted in unexpectedly strong proposals for change
>that World Bank leaders are currently resisting.
>
>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
>AfricaFocus website announcement: Focus on African Countries
>
>In order to supplement the information and analysis provided in the
>AfricaFocus Bulletin, which most often highlights issues affecting
>countries around the continent, the AfricaFocus website now offers
>"country focus" pages on each African country. These pages include
>convenient customized searches and quick links to a variety of
>country-specific data. They are particularly intended to serve as
>a quick-start for students and others seeking relevant and reliable
>information amid the profusion of sources available on the web.
>
>Features that may particularly interest AfricaFocus readers include
>a customized Google search limited to sites that are registered
>using the country's own two-letter internet domain. A few
>countries, such as Western Sahara and Guinea-Bissau, currently show
>no results for such a search. Despite Africa's relative
>disadvantages in connectivity, however, (see
>http://www.africafocus.org/docs03/it0312b.php), the number of sites
>appearing for most countries is significant and increasing.
>
>Please check out the country pages at
>http://www.africafocus.org/country/countries.php
>
>Let me know if you find mistakes or outdated links, or if you have
>suggestions for other features that might be included without
>making the pages too unwieldy or difficult to maintain.
>
>++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++++++++
>
>50 Years is Enough: U.S. Network for Global Economic Justice
>http://www.50years.org
>
>Call to Action for Mobilization
>April 21 - 25 in Washington, DC
>
>For six decades, the World Bank and IMF have imposed policies,
>programs, and projects that:
>
>* Decimate women's rights and devastate their lives, their
>families, and their communities;
>* Subjugate democratic governance and accountability to corporate
>profits and investment portfolios;
>* Trap countries in a cycle of indebtedness and economic
>domination;
>* Force governments to privatize essential services;
>* Put profits before peoples' rights and needs;
>* Abet the devastation of the environment in the name of
>development and profit;
>* Institutionalize the domination of the wealthy over the
>impoverished - the new form of colonialism; and
>* Facilitate corporate agendas through the economic re-structuring
>of countries enduring conflict and occupation, such as East Timor,
>Afghanistan, and Iraq.
>
>In the 60th anniversary year of the IMF and World Bank, we demand
>the following measures from the institutions and the governments
>which control them. Add your voice, endorse the demands:
>
>* Open all World Bank and IMF meetings to the media and the public;
>* Cancel all impoverished country debt to the World Bank and IMF,
>using the institutions' own resources;
>* End all World Bank and IMF policies that hinder people's access
>to food, clean water, shelter, health care, education, and right to
>organize. (Such "structural adjustment" policies include user fees,
>privatization, and economic austerity programs.);
>* Stop all World Bank support for socially and environmentally
>destructive projects such as oil, gas, and mining activities, and
>all support for projects such as dams that include forced
>relocation of people.
>
>We furthermore recognize the urgency of the world's most
>catastrophic health crisis, the HIV/AIDS pandemic. We assert the
>culpability of the international financial institutions in
>decimating health care systems of Global South countries, and
>reject the approach of fighting the pandemic with more loans and
>conditions from these institutions. We call on the world's
>governments to best deploy their resources by fully funding the
>Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. We demand the
>elimination of trade rules that undermine access to affordable
>life-saving medications.
>
>Help end global economic injustice driven by the policies and
>programs of the international financial institutions!
>
>Educate, Organize, Mobilize!
>Be the change you want to see in our world!
>
>Organize public events in 2004, help expose the continued use of
>power, veiled by rhetoric, to enrich corporations, banks, and
>investors at the expense of people and the planet.
>
>Mass mobilization April 21 - 25, 2004:
>Come to Washington! Take a public stand in Washington DC during the
>IMF/World Bank semi-annual meetings.
>
>email info at 50years.org or call 202/463-2265 for details & updates
>
>**************************************************************
>
>Challenges to World Bank report on
>Millenium Development Goals Progress
>
>Bretton Woods Project
>http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org
>
>5th April 2004 
>
>The World Bank has produced its first report on countries' progress
>towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). While few disagree
>with the aims of the goals, a number of groups are concerned that
>the Bank is not the appropriate agency to be undertaking such a
>review. This is because the goals are primarily a UN creation and
>because the World Bank suffers a major conflict of interests in
>producing reports about the policies of countries where it is
>itself deeply involved in policy-making. This problem is at its
>clearest in the third section of the Bank's report which focuses on
>the policy performance of the international financial institutions
>themselves.
>                         
>In theory there is an agreed division of labour. The UN is the
>scorekeeper on MDG outcome statistics, ie the numbers of children
>in primary schools. The World Bank is concentrating on the policy
>and institutional framework to achieve the MDGs. But the World Bank
>and key donor governments are aware that the most important ground
>to occupy is the commanding heights of interpretation and blame
>allocation. That the blame game is starting ahead of the 2005
>deadline for preliminary assessment of MDG progress is clear from
>comments by many NGOs and officials. Senior UN official Richard
>Jolly said last year: "pursuit of the MDGs could well be undermined
>in the future, as it has been in the past, if there is no change in
>structural adjustment policies." Many NGOs and academic researchers
>argue precisely that very little has changed in key macroeconomic
>adjustment policies.
>
>The Bank's new report is divided into three sections. The first
>looks at developing countries, the second at developed countries
>and the third at the performance of international financial
>institutions. The section on the South is based almost entirely on
>the controversial Country Policy and Institutional Assessment
>(CPIA) exercise; a scorecard that the Bank produces annually for
>all low-income countries where it lends. The CPIA is controversial
>because it is non-transparent and because the judgements made to
>compare countries are subjective and not informed by wide debate.
>Last April the Development Committee recognised the problems with
>the CPIA, urging "the Bank, working in a participatory manner, to
>continue to improve the CPIA methodology and the transparency of
>its application".
>
>Trevor Manuel, the South African finance minister who chairs the
>Development Committee, noted last April that "Ministers urged that
>the assessments included in the global monitoring reports be based
>on transparent criteria that would facilitate objective and
>impartial judgments, with several calling for the active
>participation of developing countries in the further work to be
>done on refining the CPIA methodology and application". There have
>been some meetings on this, but no major breakthroughs in changing
>the approach.
>
>The section on developed countries focuses in particular on trade
>and aid. It presents assessments of the impact on poorer countries
>of richer countries' trade regimes. It also produces a new measure
>of the quality of aid, based largely on whether it is targeted at
>the poorest countries.
>
>The section on international financial institutions summarises some
>of the figures produced by the IFIs themselves on development
>impact and effectiveness. It is understood that some other IFIs
>also queried the Bank's role in pulling together these statistics
>and deciding on the analytical framework to be adopted.
>
>The Development Committee last year called on the Bank and Fund to
>work closely with other international agencies "using institutional
>mandates to guide the division of responsibilities for monitoring
>work". It is understood that some key donor governments are using
>the self-reinforcing argument that the UN lacks the capacity to
>produce annual reports on policies towards the MDGs, so it has to
>be the Bank which does them. Ministers on the Development Committee
>will, however, have an opportunity to revisit appropriate division
>of labour for the future when it discusses this first MDG report at
>the spring meetings.
>
>Mike Rowson, director of MEDACT, a health NGO said: "it's
>ridiculous that the Bank should play such a far-reaching role in
>assessment of the MDGs. One of the aims of the Global Health Watch
>and other civil society initiatives is to open some policy
>discussion around alternatives. Putting the Bank in charge of
>assessing progress towards the MDGs simply strengthens their
>position - what we need is more perspectives and more debate about
>whether the Bank's policies are right".
>
>*************************************************************
>
>World Bank pushes Malawi agriculture privatisation
>
>Bretton Woods Project
>http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org
>
>5th April 2004
>
>The World Bank is demanding the privatisation of the Malawian
>agricultural marketing board as a condition of its latest
>structural adjustment loan. The way the Bank has manoeuvred to
>persuade Malawi's parliament to accept this shows the limits of
>'country ownership'. It also demonstrates key weaknesses in one of
>the World Bank and IMF's new tools, Poverty and Social Impact
>Analysis (PSIA) studies which are supposed to outline likely
>consequences of key reforms so as to enable a better debate on
>policy design. A Malawian civil society campaign coalition which
>has mobilised against these planned reforms expressed its concern
>with how the World Bank and other donors have pushed their agenda
>on this issue "at the expense of the food security of the poor".
>
>The privatisation of the state marketing board in Malawi (ADMARC)
>has been an objective of the World Bank for 10 years. It represents
>a central element in an approach to agriculture that holds that
>full liberalisation of the sector will be best for poor women and
>men. This approach has been increasingly questioned in Malawi and
>other countries in the region, particularly in the context of the
>recent food crisis. Many commentators believe the full
>liberalisation of other elements of the agriculture sector under
>Bank and Fund advice was a major cause of the food crisis and the
>subsequent deaths in 2002.
>
>Because of the controversy over the proposed reforms, including
>studies by civil society groups, the Bank agreed to commission a
>Poverty and Social Impact Analysis. This research showed that
>ADMARC's important role in supporting the lives of poor women and
>men would be destroyed by privatisation. But, presumably
>embarrassed by the results, the Bank delayed publication of the
>study for two years, withholding it until just after the Malawian
>parliament had agreed to the reforms.
>
>In late December 2003 legislation was rushed through a special
>parliamentary session turning ADMARC into a limited company, the
>first stage in the privatisation process. This session was
>boycotted by many MPs, partly because they had already expressed
>opposition to the privatisation of ADMARC in two previous hearings.
>Civil society campaigners expressed concern that ADMARC
>privatisation was being "used as a carrot for grants and loans".
>This was borne out by the Bank's response to the parliamentary
>vote, a February announcement of a new $50 million structural
>adjustment credit with the privatisation of ADMARC as one of its
>conditions.
>
>The civil society and official impact analysis studies agreed that
>ADMARC is clearly in need of reform, but demonstrate that it plays
>a vital social role in ensuring market access for the rural poor by
>running subsidised markets country-wide. These markets would close
>under privatisation and the small and weak private sector would be
>unlikely to fill this gap, leaving a dangerous vacuum in service
>provision that directly threatens people's livelihoods.
>
>Civil society groups have mobilised to publicise these issues, with
>a major campaign during 2002 against the privatisation of ADMARC.
>An active media campaign resulted in a series of high-profile
>national debates. Parliament was closely involved, and in
>particular the Agriculture committee which carried out its own
>analysis showing the harm that privatisation would cause to the
>poorest.
>
>The decision-making process and its outcome are being declared
>unacceptable by Malawian civil society groups. They are "demanding
>that any conditionality regarding ADMARC is immediately removed
>from the new loan" and encouraging civil society groups in other
>countries to take action in their support. Groups pushing the Bank
>to conduct Poverty and Social Impact Analyses will also need to
>ensure far greater control over the process of commissioning,
>reviewing and disseminating such studies, to ensure that they
>enrich debate rather than sit on shelves until the World Bank or
>IMF browbeat parliamentarians to accept their agendas.
>
>[For additional background on international financial institutions
>and food security in Malawi, see:
>http://www.africaaction.org/docs02/food0206.htm]
>
>*************************************************************
>
>Life under the IMF's magnifying glass:
>A Zambian civil servant chafes at the collar
>
>Bretton Woods Project
>http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org
>
>5th April 2004
>
>Zambia entered the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC)
>initiative in November 2000. According to the agreement with the
>IMF and the World Bank, the country was supposed to have reached
>the 'completion point' - the point at which debt relief would
>actually be delivered - in December 2003. This would have meant
>Zambia being relieved of about half of its huge external debt of
>$6.8 billion.
>
>Despite its good track record for the first two years (according to
>the Fund and the Bank), Zambia was removed from the Fund's credit
>line in April 2003 after it was discovered that the country was not
>meeting limitations on public sector salaries set by the Fund.
>Consequently Zambia has been put on a Staff Monitored Programme
>(SMP) until June 2004, instead of the conventional Poverty
>Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF). During this period, should
>Zambia fail to satisfy the conditions of the IMF/World Bank, the
>country will not reach the completion point. This means it would
>have to pay close to $300 million in debt servicing from domestic
>resources in 2004, with that figure rising in subsequent years.
>Breaking the agreement
>
>The Zambian Government is the country's biggest employer. However,
>remuneration in the civil service cannot be compared to what
>persons with similar qualifications in the private sector earn, or
>even what is earned by civil servants in neighbouring countries.
>Many professionals have been leaving the civil service to go and
>work where conditions of service are better. In the hope of
>retaining its professional staff, the Government introduced a
>housing allowance system. As a result, the ratio of public sector
>wages to GDP reached 9%, exceeding the 8% agreed with the Fund in
>the budget: Zambia was removed from the PRGF and put on a Staff
>Monitored Programme.
>
>To meet the 8% agreement, in this year's budget there is no salary
>increment for any civil servant despite rising price levels linked
>to increased value-added taxes and import duties. Housing
>allowances have been reduced to unacceptable levels. No new civil
>servants are to be employed for the next one and half years despite
>a shortage of doctors and teachers in government-run institutions.
>These new measures are supposed to be operational by 1 April.
>
>Life under the Staff Monitored Programme
>
>The Zambian SMP started in July 2003 and runs to June 2004. The
>Fund has assigned six economists to monitor the Zambian economy.
>Each one is an 'expert' in the real, fiscal, monetary or external
>sectors. Some of these 'experts' are recent college graduates with
>little or no knowledge of the Zambian economy.
>
>Under a PRGF arrangement, the Fund only makes at most two visits in
>a year. Under the SMP this increases to at least four visits.
>Progress in implementing the SMP is monitored monthly. Targets are
>defined in a technical memorandum of understanding. Under the
>arrangement the Government has to justify all its expenditures.
>
>A committee chaired by the minister of finance meets once every two
>weeks. The IMF resident representative attends these meetings as an
>observer. Also, once a country is on a SMP, it is the IMF staff
>assigned to monitor that country who represent it on the board.
>
>To graduate out of the SMP Zambia has to meet certain conditions.
>The main ones are reducing the budget deficit to the agreed upon
>target of not more than 3 percent of GDP and maintaining a public
>sector wage to GDP ratio of not more than 8 percent. Additionally
>Zambia is expected to privatise the remaining public utilities in
>the energy and telecommunications sectors. To make matters worse
>the monies realised from the sale of the parastatals must be used
>for debt servicing and not for investment or consumption purposes.
>
>The Zambian government is at a crossroads. If it pleases the
>IMF/World Bank by going along with the proposed measures in the
>letter of intent, it is likely to cause industrial unrest. If it
>goes with the will of the people, the country will have to pay
>hundreds of millions of dollars more in debt servicing.
>
>[For additional background on Zambia's debt, see
>http://www.africafocus.org/docs04/debt0402.php]
>
>*************************************************************
>
>Additional Sources on World Bank Policies
>
>Operations Evaluation Department, World Bank
>http://www.worldbank.org/oed
>
>World Bank Bonds Boycott
>http://www.worldbankboycott.org
>
>IFIwatchnet
>http://www.ifiwatchnet.org
>
>Bank Information Center
>http://www.bicusa.org
>
>Structural Adjustment Participatory Review International Network
>  (SAPRIN)
>http://www.saprin.org
>
>Statement by Global Unions, March 19, 2004
>http://www.icftu.org/www/pdf/enstatementimfwbspring2004.pdf
>
>*************************************************************
>AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
>providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues,
>with a particular focus on U.S. and international policies.
>AfricaFocus Bulletin is edited by William Minter.
>
>AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus at igc.org.
>Please write to this address to subscribe or unsubscribe to the
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>information about reposted material, please contact directly the
>original source mentioned. For a full archive and other resources,
>see http://www.africafocus.org
>
>************************************************************


-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu