The IMF itself has said that "in recent decades nearly one-fifth of the world population have regressed in relative and sometimes even absolute terms." And that this is "arguably one of the greatest economic failures of the 20th century ¹ ." Yet they refuse to see their current lending policies to poverty-ridden countries as part of the problem. In 54 percent of countries borrowing funds from the World Bank, the people experienced stagnating per capita income, rising poverty, declining life expectancy, or a combination of all of the above². Yet the World Bank continues to push export economies and international competitiveness, while sucking money away from social services -- or else, no loan. Rather than working to reduce poverty, as both pledge to do³, these institutions are contributing to it, in the name of the free-market economy.

September 2000 saw ten thousand concerned citizens -- union members, teachers, activists, academics, small business owners, families, pro-democracy groups, church groups -- make their way to Prague to impress upon the IMF and World Bank that they can’t turn their backs on the problems of borrowing nations once the bucks have been distributed. Simply: they are part of the problem, and together, we must resolve it. An alternative to economic globalization is possible -- we just have to build it.

 

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1 IMF Official Transcript, 4/12/00 press conference on World Economic Outlook 2000. 2 From Operations Evaluation Department, World Bank 1999 Annual Report of Development Effectiveness 2000, p. 17. 3 The World Bank adopted the 'overarching objective' of poverty reduction in 1990, while the IMF declared that poverty reduction would be the objective of its programs in 1999.