Race Against Time

Index	Chapter Summary	IMF and World Bank - Gerry McBride	References	Discussion
Summary Notes -
Stephen Lewis writes this book under duress for he is "addicted to the spoken word". And of course all who listen to him, are rivetted by his speaking. Check the references page above and sample a few video and audio samples of his "addiction". Especially the empassioned extra 7:35 minutes video of his final address at the Toronto AIDS 2006 Conference. It is a clarion summary of the themes of Race Against Time. The book is about the Millenium Development Goals and how AIDS is worsening those goals. He loves the UN, but is angry at the broken promises of conference after conference and country after country. He advocates renewal of "development and humanitarian ethos". The pandemic of AIDS overwhelms everything else in Africa and makes it nearly impossible that the MDGs will be bet by the target year of 2015. Africa is developing itself slowly and steadily despite the many depredations we of the developed world have imposed on them. Colonial times are not yet over with the drain of resource without fair payment. The Cold War "whip-sawed" Africa. But the worst that Africa has seen appears to be the "help" from the International Financial Institutions (IFIS) - mostly World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Through debt continuance, over control of local budgets and such the poor countries are unable to escape the chains of financial slavery. Last September the IFIS reaffirmed these policies Stephen Lewis observes to be so injurious. ... facing the challenge of the new financial development after relief and to try to control debt sustainability in low income countries. The MDGS will be achievable only if all development partners play their parts to increase aid effectiveness, and in this regard the Fund is really playing a very important role in making macroeconomic policies sound and financial systems in order to help achieve these Millennium Development Goals. ... WB President Wolfowitz Sep 2006 Lewis logs the history of this financial "depredation". In the '80s SAP's or Structural Adjustment Programs were created whereby loans were given with conditions attached. That sounds normal for a bank, and at that time there were many dictatorial goverments in Africa. But these conditions were very intrusive controls of African economies that restricted social spending in order to pay bank obligations. The practical results of these policies meant that African governments could not implement or budget their own programs, were compelled to add user fees for schools and services to a citizenry without the ability to pay. and unable to hire their own unemployed teachers and nurses. These policies favoured the disassembly of the public sector services in favour of privitization of these services. The mistake of this says Lewis was that the IFIS behaved as if it was making loans to normal state with a working productive economies. That was never the case. Damage was done. And this was even before AIDs was added to the difficulty. In 1986 Lewis took on the UN job of Rep for Africa for the Secretary General. He describes the working meetings of the UN agencies, the countries, the NGO's and IFIS as very contentious and difficult. That pretty much everyone lined up against the banks who were unremitting in their policies. Lewis further describes a growing awareness of pretty much everyone involved in Africa except the banks as understanding the wrong headedness of bank policy. The UK is noteworthy in being a key voice of change on this account. Whether this will be effective or enough is in question. Even the recent G8 gathering in Scotland is too little too late it would seem. The better off part of the world community seems to be more interested in good sounding words (what Lewis calls "claptrap") than actually turning their good words into policies. Trade inequality is another terrible restriction on Africa. Western agricultural subsidies prevent African producers to sell to the world. The percentage of trade for Africa over the Doha round of negotiations has in fact diminished from 3% to 1%. This despite the published goal of Doha being to better Africa! Debt continues to crush Africa. The banks continue to be the vehicle of offering help to an Africa simply unable to pay. Lewis seriously challenges the idea that Africa is responsible in any way for their troubles or in any way for the worst disease in history. For the last 20 years every meeting of the G8 has talked of African debt without decision. Even the last meeting with it's $40 billion writeoff for 18 countries still left $200 billion owing. Africa has paid in interest as much as in fact it owed, but without reducing the debt. The evil of this is multiplied when the record shows the monies owed were often irresponsibly borrowed by non-democratic governments. He discounts Bob Geldorf's enthusiasm. The real need is not loans but grants from the developed nations. Lester Pearson proposed in 1969 that everyone pay .7% of GNP to underwrite aid to the developing nations. It's called the ODA - Official Development Assistance. It has been affirmed by the UN on many occasions. It is embarrassing that only Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland and Luxemburg have met that level of giving. The rest (including Canada) pay lip service only. Presently the UN is promoting .54% by 2015 as a target. Canada is giving .34%, the US .22%, Japan .28%, UK .54%, Sweden and Norway .93%. LINK It is believed that this modest rate would solve the worst problems of poverty in the world. "No new promises are needed—only following through on commitments already made" It seems it can always be worse. Funds are sometimes seriously delayed or not disbursed by the donor governments (especially the US) that were budgeted. And Lewis says only 40% of the money gets to the job - the rest being administration or worse. "I'm weary beyond the definition of weariness" he says. And Canada who proposed the ODA is seen by the world as hypocritical not to meet it. And of course if the funds promised are not forthcoming the MD Goals will not be met.
International Monetary Fund and World Bank - by Gerry McBride
The International Monetary Fund The International Monetary fund has a good description of its functions and operations online. LINK. A summary of this information excerpted from the site follows. The IMF was conceived in July 1944, when representatives of 45 governments meeting in the town of Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, agreed on a framework for international economic cooperation. They believed that such a framework was necessary to avoid a repetition of the disastrous economic policies that had contributed to the Great Depression of the 1930s. Seeking to restore order to international monetary relations, the IMF's founders charged the new institution with overseeing the international monetary system to ensure exchange rate stability and encouraging member countries to eliminate exchange restrictions that hindered trade. The IMF came into existence in December 1945, when its first 29 member countries signed its Articles of Agreement. Since then, the IMF has adapted itself to keep up with the expansion of its membership—184 countries as of June 2006—and with changes in the world economy. The organization promotes international monetary cooperation, exchange stability, and orderly exchange arrangements; fosters economic growth and high levels of employment; and provides temporary financial assistance to countries to help ease balance of payments adjustment. The work of the IMF is of three main types. Surveillance involves the monitoring of economic and financial developments, and the provision of policy advice, aimed especially at crisis-prevention. The IMF also lends to countries with balance of payments difficulties, to provide temporary financing and to support policies aimed at correcting the underlying problems; loans to low-income countries are also aimed at poverty reduction. Third, the IMF provides countries with technical assistance and training in its areas of expertise. IMF’s work in economic research and statistics supports all three of these activities. The IMF and World Bank together have endorsed internationally recognized standards and codes in areas important for their work and for which Reports on the Observance of Standards and Codes are prepared. Standards in the areas of data, fiscal transparency, and monetary and financial policy transparency have been developed by the IMF while others have been developed by other standard-setting bodies including the World Bank, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, and the Financial Action Task Force. In its oversight of member countries, the IMF focuses on the following: macroeconomic policies relating to the government's budget, the management of money and credit, and the exchange rate; macroeconomic performance—government and consumer spending, business investment, exports and imports, output (GDP), employment, and inflation; balance of payments—that is, the balance of a country's transactions with the rest of the world; financial sector policies, including the regulation and supervision of banks and other financial institutions; and structural policies that affect macroeconomic performance, such as those governing labor markets, the energy sector, and trade. The IMF advises members on how they might improve their policies in these areas to achieve higher rates of employment, lower inflation, and sustainable economic growth. The World Bank The World Bank home page is HERE. A summary of World Bank activities extracted from this site and the IMF site follows. The World Bank was established at the Bretton Woods Conference at the same time as the IMF. Its purpose was to help war-ravaged countries rebuild. The earliest recipients of its loans were the European countries and Japan. By the early 1960s, these countries no longer needed World Bank assistance, and its lending was redirected to the newly independent and emerging nations of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, and, in the 1990s, to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Countries must join the IMF to be eligible for World Bank membership. The IMF and the World Bank complement each other's work. While the IMF's focus is chiefly on macroeconomic and financial sector issues, the World Bank is concerned mainly with longer-term development and poverty reduction. Its loans finance infrastructure projects, the reform of particular sectors of the economy, and broader structural reforms. The reforms have often focused on privatization of infrastructure projects and services performed by governments. The World Bank is like a cooperative, where its 184 member countries are shareholders. The shareholders are represented by a Board of Governors, who are the ultimate policy makers at the World Bank. Generally, the governors are member countries' ministers of finance or ministers of development. They meet once a year at the annual meetings of the Boards of Governors of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund. Because the governors only meet annually, they delegate specific duties to 24 Executive Directors, who work on-site at the bank. The five largest shareholders, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States each appoint an executive director, while other member countries are represented by 19 executive directors. The World Bank is a vital source of financial and technical assistance to developing countries around the world. It is not a bank in the common sense. It consists of two development institutions owned its member countries—the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Institute (IDA). Each institution plays a different but supportive role in the mission of global poverty reduction and the improvement of living standards. The IBRD focuses on middle income and creditworthy poor countries, while IDA focuses on the poorest countries in the world. Together they provide low-interest loans, interest-free credit and grants to developing countries for education, health, infrastructure, communications and many other purposes. The World Bank’s work has refocused on achievement of the Millennium Development Goals that call for the elimination of poverty and sustained development. The mission is to help developing countries and their people reach the goals by working with their partners to alleviate poverty. They concentrate on building the climate for investment, jobs and sustainable growth so that economies will grow, and investing in and empowering poor people to participate in development. Developing countries have determined themselves that for their economies to grow and attract business and jobs they must: Build capacity – strengthen their governments and educate government officials Create infrastructure – implement legal and judicial systems that encourage business, protect individual and property rights, and honor contracts Develop financial systems – robust enough to support endeavors from micro credit to financing large corporate ventures Combat corruption – or there is not much that can be done that is effective. The bank is currently involved in more than 1,800 projects in virtually every sector and developing country. The projects are as diverse as providing microcredit in Bosnia and Herzegovina, raising AIDS-prevention awareness in Guinea, supporting education of girls in Bangladesh, improving health care delivery in Mexico, and helping East Timor rebuild upon independence and India rebuild Gujarat after a devastating earthquake.
Discussion - Context: What do I hope to gain from this study?
A learning fellowship. An African experience. Awareness of the Stephen Lewis Foundation. Live films of situations we need to know about. A greater sense of involvement. To come to know Stephen Lewis as a friend, with influence. Respect for his#intelligence and passion. A better understanding of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. To try to gain a perspective of sanity in the midst of insanity. Doing what we can from where we are. Learning about civil society and NGOs (non-govenmental organizations) that can make a difference through individuals and groups. We want to begin with ourselves, our own feelings and experience, to identify with others.

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