IMF and World Bank meeting

The International Monetary Fund and the Word Bank are meeting this week to discuss (among other things) how they work with civil society groups to improve the lot of poor countries. However, the host country of the meeting, Singapore, is blocking the entry of many representatives of these civil society groups. As a protest, Christian Aid is joining the movement asking civil society groups to boycott the meeting.

“This is an extremely disappointing development by the Singaporean authorities,” said John McGhie, Christian Aid’s Campaigns Editor. “We are now keen to lend our full support to the international call for an immediate boycott of all formal talks with either the Bank or the Fund in Singapore. It would be a travesty to hold cosy chats with their officials while so many of our colleagues are being denied entry to the country.”...
The move is bound to embarrass Bank officials in particular. The World Bank’s new Director General, Paul Wolfowitz, a former member of US President’s George Bush’s cabinet, has spent his first few months in office pursuing a ‘governance’ agenda that sought to eliminate corruption in developing countries. In order to achieve this he was leaning heavily on civil society groups for both credibility and implementation, say campaigners.
“It is farcical for the Bank and the Fund to meet and discuss human rights in a country where human rights are restricted. It shows how out of step with reality they are”.

In a related move, Christian Aid is also calling on the UK Government to stop funding the IMF and WB, as part of the commitment it made last year after the Make Poverty History campaign.

Last year one of the successes of the Make Poverty History campaign, was that Tony Blair announced the UK would no longer force poor countries to implement controversial economic policies in return for aid.
This radical call to withdraw UK money from the World Bank and IMF is to try to persuade them to follow suit.

Update
I heard this story on the radio this morning, but haven’t been able to find it on the BBC News site. Hillary Benn MP, Secretary of State for International Development, has announced that the UK Government will be witholding £50 million of its contribution to the World Bank, in protest at its policies. Christian Aid has welcomed this announcement.

pax et bonum

Article posted at 3:48pm on 13 September 2006
Category: Politics, Struggling, General

Seeing as you posted this story, you might be interested in the three Christian Aid podcasts created from the march on London today. Over 3,000 campaigners turned up. Well worth a listen.
http://nightingalesangatwcc.typepad.com/..

Best

Steven Buckley () (URL)
12:31am on 15 September 2006