Coverstory
IMF, World Bank http://www.africasia.co.uk/newafrican/na.php?ID=1126
How IMF, World Bank failed Africa
“After 20 years of implementing structural adjustment programmes, our economy has remained weak and vulnerable and not sufficiently transformed to sustain accelerated growth and development. Poverty has become widespread, unemployment very high, manufacturing and agriculture in decline, and our external and domestic debts much too heavy a burden to bear” – Kwamena Bartels, Ghana’s minister for works and housing, May 2001 (he is now minister for information).4 Welcome to how the IMF and World Bank run the show in Africa and, thus, lead our countries down the garden path. This report was put together by the London-based World Development Movement (WDM) as its contribution to the ongoing debate on what kind of global institutions would improve everyone’s quality of life in a highly interconnected world.
The IMF has received heavy criticism for its handling of various financial crises in middle-income countries: Mexico (1965), Russia (1998), Brazil (1998), Turkey (1998) and Argentina (2001). But perhaps the most famous is the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, occurring during Michel Camdessus’ tenure as head of the IMF (more recently he has sat on Tony Blair’s Commission for Africa).The problem with the World Bank and IMF’s focus on “export-led growth” or “export-led development” is the way that it has been pursued. Most industrialised or newly-industrialised countries have moved away from exports that are focused on agriculture, and into trading manufactured goods.As the Norwegian economist, Erik Reinert, points out: “No nation has ever taken the step from being poor to being wealthy exporting raw materials in the absence of a domestic manufacturing sector.”
Coverstory
IMF, World Bank
How IMF, World Bank failed Africa
“After 20 years of implementing structural adjustment programmes, our economy has remained weak and vulnerable and not sufficiently transformed to sustain accelerated growth and development. Poverty has become widespread, unemployment very high, manufacturing and agriculture in decline, and our external and domestic debts much too heavy a burden to bear” – Kwamena Bartels, Ghana’s minister for works and housing, May 2001 (he is now minister for information).4 Welcome to how the IMF and World Bank run the show in Africa and, thus, lead our countries down the garden path. This report was put together by the London-based World Development Movement (WDM) as its contribution to the ongoing debate on what kind of global institutions would improve everyone’s quality of life in a highly interconnected world.
The IMF has received heavy criticism for its handling of various financial crises in middle-income countries: Mexico (1965), Russia (1998), Brazil (1998), Turkey (1998) and Argentina (2001). But perhaps the most famous is the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, occurring during Michel Camdessus’ tenure as head of the IMF (more recently he has sat on Tony Blair’s Commission for Africa).The problem with the World Bank and IMF’s focus on “export-led growth” or “export-led development” is the way that it has been pursued. Most industrialised or newly-industrialised countries have moved away from exports that are focused on agriculture, and into trading manufactured goods.As the Norwegian economist, Erik Reinert, points out: “No nation has ever taken the step from being poor to being wealthy exporting raw materials in the absence of a domestic manufacturing sector.”