Another interview where it is being reiterated that IMF & World Bank, the international financial institutions, are essentially, tools of the developed countries to keep the developing countries from ever developing. I have blogged about this several times before this post.
IMF & the World Bank are the instruments of the West, to keep the development goal, out of reach, from developing countries in Latin America, Asia, & Africa. These institutions provide billions in loans to countries with known corrupt leaders & then impose harsh restrictions, like austerity measures, to recover those loans. The corruption of the political leaders are well known. Those austerity measures tie the hands of the successive governments, regardless of how much they are well-intentioned, behind their backs, & the developing countries fail to develop.
These countries are instructed to privatize everything, increase prices & taxes for the local citizenry, but decrease their taxes & royalties from natural wealth, & let the international corporations loot the developing countries of their natural wealth. Of course, then, is it any wonder that developed countries keep developing further & amassing huge wealth, whereas, the developing countries stay at the bottom of the pile. If, by any chance, the leaders of the developing countries resist following the demands of the IMF, World Bank, of the political leaders of the developed countries, then political assassinations & interference, & ultimately, war, is imposed on those developing countries.
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SHARMINI PERIES, EXEC. PRODUCER, TRNN: … do you think this is an adequate response on the part of the World Bank?
NII AKUETTEH, FMR. DIRECTOR AT AFRICA ACTION: I don't think so … the World Bank and the IMF have contributed to the weak health systems in Africa … . So, therefore, so to speak, they contributed to the problem; therefore they need to own up to their mistakes and they need to do more to help rescue these countries.
PERIES: What do you mean by that? What role has IMF and the World Bank played in West Africa in the past?
AKUETTEH: Oh, well, you know, two phrases. One is structural adjustment programs. Anybody who's been studying Africa since independence knows that especially since the '80s, when Ronald Reagan got into power in the United States and the World Bank and the IMF actually made themselves the economic stewards of economic policy in Africa, structural adjustment, otherwise called austerity measures, they have imposed these policies on the African countries regardless of what the people want, regardless of what the leaders wanted. So structural adjustment is one of those phrases. And the governments were told, were forced, that in order to get a good mark from the World Bank and the IMF, you have to keep government small, you have to slash government officials' pay; after you have slashed the number of government officials, you have to privatize everything and you have to force people to pay, and especially to pay for health care and to pay out of pocket for education.
So I think, though structural adjustment went on for decades and they devastated the African economies, the other phrase that I wanted to throw in is IMF riots. This actually came from Africa, where every time the IMF would impose economic conditions, ordinary people in the street were so hit hard that they would riot. And so it actually created a new phrase in the English language and in economic writing: IMF riots.
PERIES: So, Nii, explain more, in the sense that, yes, of course the IMF would have these horrendous austerity policies and neoliberal economic policies and force governments to shrink their bureaucratic and civil service, all these things in the past were set up in order to service their people. But why are they forced to come to these kinds of agreements with the World Bank and the IMF?
AKUETTEH: I think that's a great question, because on the surface of it, a government, a country can simply say, sorry, your conditions are too harsh, we don't have to deal with you. After all, the United States doesn't take the advice of the World Bank and the IMF. A number of big countries don't. But for African countries, number one, they are economically small and weak. Secondly, having just gotten out of colonialism--I know this is about 50 years ago, but when you are trying to restructure economic systems that was built over more than a century, it is not easy. And so they are tied into the global economy. They are tied into their former colonial masters. That is especially France and the U.K. And they are tied to the United States.
Now, those three countries, the United States, the U.K., and France, play a major role in the World Bank and the IMF. And therefore the World Bank and the IMF actually act as policeman and gatekeepers for the entire global economy if you are an African country, because the rest of the global economy says to you, we will deal with you only if the World Bank and the IMF says you are well behaved. And the World Bank and the IMF will say you are well behaved only if you agree to their conditions. And therefore it's almost impossible for an African country to say, listen, I don't want to do this anymore.
You know, everybody who reads the news, Africa news, and especially U.S.-Africa, will know that the West doesn't much care for Robert Mugabe. Usually you will be told that it's because he is internally repressive and other things. But I happen to think that one major factor also is that for about ten years after Zimbabwe became independent, Robert Mugabe followed the dictates of the World Bank and the IMF very closely. And after about ten years he said, no, this is not working no more. For instance, they made Zimbabwe sell its stock of maize, and say it's uneconomical to hold it; sell it, buy it when you need it. But that was bad economic advice, because when they wanted to buy it, they had to pay more. And so I am saying that countries that defy the IMF and the World Bank get punished by the larger global economy, and therefore it's not been very easy for those countries to reject what the World Bank and the IMF recommend, because they were doing it on behalf of the global economy.
PERIES: But these economies are very resource-rich. I mean, places like Sierra Leone have diamonds and gold, and West Africa is considered one of the natural resource rich regions of the world. The World Bank adopting these policies is really opening the doors and the gates to a flood of corporations coming in to do business in the region and reap the resources out of the region and leave very little behind. Can you sort of describe those complex relationships between the World Bank, the IMF, the local governments, the corporations that have left--the conditions that they have left in the region that is now unable to cope with … a grave epidemic of Ebola in the region?
AKUETTEH: I think that question is fantastic. I mean, because the reason that the World Bank and the IMF do what they do, the reason that they squeeze the African countries and say to them, you do what we tell you, never mind what your own people might want, never mind what your own leaders might want, the IMF and the World Bank, there's a method to their madness. And I believe said the method, the reason they do what they do, is actually to make it safe and hospitable for international corporations to go in and plunder Africa's wealth. It is as simple as that.
Now, it's been going on for years. The IMF and the World Bank are creatures created after the Second World War. They're Bretton Woods institutions. So, after the Second World War, with the U.K. and Western Europe being weakened, they were created to help stand up again in the global economy. So they took over what has been done, which is plundering Africa's wealth, leaving very little for the Africans … . That question goes to why this is done. The World Bank and the IMF would tell the African countries, keep governments small; you can't afford--. I mean, when I was in school, our governments were being told, listen--I'm from Ghana--you are a small country, the United States doesn't invest this much into education, so why should you? You shouldn't invest in education; let parents pay for it, when most parents are poor and when education is an investment. So they want to keep governments small. They want the people of the country to get as little as possible from the wealth--the bottom line is because they want the Western corporations to continue taking the wealth from out of Africa.
This is precisely why they do it. Even as recently as in Liberia, when Ms. Johnson Sirleaf--whom I know well because she was my boss at a certain point-- when she became president, she got a lot of kudos from the West because she is well known in the West and it was great that a woman had been in elected president in Africa. But behind the scenes, she was told that, listen, you will get a lot of corporations investing if you don't insist that they clean up the environment, if you don't push hard for labor protections, if you don't insist on high taxes, so all the things that the World Bank and the IMF says.
I'm saying your question is great because it goes to the heart of it: it's designed to make it easier for Western corporations to plunder Africa. It's as simple as that.
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