Recent
Developments in IMF-CSO Relations
Since the
last issue of the Civil Society Newsletter,
Rodrigo de Rato has taken up office as head of the IMF. The
new Managing Director, who previously served as Finance Minister
of Spain, was appointed in May after the resignation of Horst
Köhler, who has since been elected President of Germany. De Rato
assumed his post on June 7, and immediately set out to
familiarize himself with the institution, and to meet with
leaders in member countries. This has involved a busy early
travel schedule, and de Rato initiated his contacts with civil
society organizations (CSOs) while overseas. Immediately after
arriving in Washington, the Managing Director visited Japan,
China, Singapore, and Vietnam; in the last country he held a
meeting with international and domestic NGOs,
reported in this issue. In early August, he made his first trip
to Africa as head of the Fund, visiting Nigeria, Gabon, Uganda,
and Kenya. The visit involved wide-ranging exchanges of views
related to the strategies for promoting faster economic growth
and poverty reduction in the region; meetings with civil society
organizations were held in each country. In a speech to West
African leaders in Gabon, de Rato said the Fund's African
Department is being restructured with more staff added, to
ensure that the institution is "a reliable partner for Africa."
He added that "a process of reflection is currently under way
assessing the IMF's work with its low-income members." In the
weeks before the October 2004 Annual Meetings, de Rato will
continue reaching out to CSOs worldwide.
Over the past few months, pressure has been increasing on the
international community to make good on its commitments to
assist the poor countries-especially in Africa-as they battle
the scourge of HIV/AIDS. The IMF has welcomed an emerging
commitment by donors to provide more resources to combat the
disease; the Fund is working with recipient countries to help
them make the best possible use of the new resources. Over the
next several years, funding for HIV/AIDS prevention and
treatment is expected to rise dramatically. But such rapid
increases in external funding are not always an unmixed
blessing: they can pose serious challenges for countries seeking
to absorb the added resources effectively. If these challenges
are not met, they could not only compromise the expected
benefits but also endanger longer-term political support in
donor countries. An interview in this issue
with a senior Fund staffer outlines many of the issues faced by
developing countries in using these resources. It also
addresses-and refutes-recent accusations that IMF-supported
programs have restricted individual countries' responses to the
crisis.
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Feature Article
An interview with Peter
Heller on financing for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment
Peter Heller, Deputy Director of the Fiscal Affairs
Department of the IMF, is a long-standing expert on the
economics of health care in developing countries. A former
member of the World Health Organization's Commission for
Macroeconomics and Health and a current member of the Task Force
on Poverty and Economic Growth of the UN Millennium Project,
Heller recently organized a meeting of IMF staff with
representatives of the international health community, bilateral
donors, and NGOs on how to manage the macroeconomic implications
of the new flow of assistance for programs focused on HIV/AIDS
prevention and treatment (see
article in the IMF Survey, p. 202). He spoke about the
challenges involved, at IMF Headquarters in Washington DC in
July. Excerpts:
Q: Is there any legitimate criticism of the IMF in its
dealings with poor countries facing vast HIV/AIDS infection
rates?
A: I don't think so. There is certainly no IMF
ceiling that has prevented the employment of nurses in Kenya
or Uganda or elsewhere, as has been alleged by some. It is
true that in these countries we are supporting programs in
which there are ceilings on domestic bank borrowing by the
government that effectively limit the size of the government
budget deficit. Very occasionally, there are ceilings that
affect total government employment. But if governments say,
"We can't employ people in health care because the IMF is
preventing us," that's not really true. First, ceilings that
may affect government employment relate to total
government employment. Governments generally recognize that
there are significant inefficiencies and excesses in many
ministries. Substitution of health workers or teachers in
place of administrators or clerks could, under many
circumstances, be a productive change. But we recognize that
this is not so simple for governments to do. And second, if
new resources do come in for HIV/AIDS, especially in
the form of grants, there is always scope for these ceilings
within Fund programs to be reconsidered. Supplementary
budgets can be passed that take account of new budgetary
resources, so these ceilings should not be a binding
constraint preventing employment for HIV/AIDS treatment and
prevention. I should also note that in some countries, the
Fund has made explicit provision for increasing the size of
the civil service to accommodate more teachers and health
professionals.
Q: Still, the IMF does enforce spending limits.
A: Our core mandate is to help countries achieve
and maintain macroeconomic stability. That doesn't mean
we're not flexible. It does mean that we can't support a
policy program that implies a high rate of inflation. There
are limits. My understanding of recent research is that once
inflation starts rising above a certain level-and here
economists are still trying to understand whether that level
is 5 percent or 10-11 percent-it becomes injurious to the
prospects for real economic growth. It's injurious to an
environment in which business can make decisions that
promote growth. And it's injurious to the welfare of the
poorest members of society. The question is how to do as
much as possible without these macroeconomic constraints
starting to bite. We would be negligent if we just ignored
these kinds of issues, because we would end up weakening
growth and hurting the poor-precisely the people we all want
to help.
Q: When did new resources to support HIV/AIDS
prevention and treatment appear?
A: They are just starting to show up. The Global
Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria has been
making commitments for roughly the past three years. But
it's taken time for those commitments to be translated into
disbursements. That's even more the case for President
Bush's HIV/AIDS initiative, which only this year is starting
to make disbursements. The amounts of disbursements could
mount significantly next year-possibly raising total
government spending in the health sectors of some countries
by 30 percent to 50 percent to 75 percent, or even much
more.
Q: People who are not economists may have trouble
understanding why receiving a lot of money could create
problems.
A: When a lot of money for HIV/AIDS treatment and
prevention pours into a country like Zambia or Malawi, there
certainly would be no adverse macroeconomic effects if the
funds all went to buy pills. The only question would be, are
there sufficient people on the ground to hand out these
pills, and make sure that they're handed out to the right
people? But if only one-third of the money comes in for
pills, and the rest of it comes in to buy the services of
nurses, doctors, and community health workers, then the
question is, do you have the capacity to expand the supply
of skilled professionals in that sector? If the answer is
yes, then there should not be a significant problem. But in
many of these countries, you don't have that capacity. It
may take some time to develop training programs to augment
the supply. Until that happens, what could occur is that the
government starts bidding for the services of the available
people. Other parts of the public sector may demand
increased wages as well, arguing that "The nurses are
getting higher salaries; why shouldn't we?" And governments
may not be able to afford giving higher salaries to
everybody.
Q: Do the potential problems go beyond pressure on
wages?
A: Another issue concerns the dedication of
substantial external resources to work on HIV/AIDS
prevention and treatment. Does this match the priorities of
the government? For example, the new funding may allow the
government to do a great job on HIV/AIDS prevention and
treatment, but the government may find itself with few
resources for other critical elements of the health
sector-for instance, no one to staff health centers for
routine maternal-child health visits. Malaria is not going
away, tuberculosis is not going away, all the sources of
child mortality are not going away. It's not for us in the
IMF to judge what the relative priorities should be in the
health sector. But we know that governments do worry
about a disproportionate focus vis-à-vis other sectors such
as education, agriculture, water supply, and sanitation.
Spending in those areas might be powerfully productive in
raising economic growth and living standards.
Q: Some of the discussion on HIV/AIDS funding in poor
countries brings up the so-called "Dutch Disease." What does
this mean?
A: The term is used for a currency appreciation
arising from an inflow of external resources that adversely
affects export incentives and incomes of producers in the
export sectors. Let me give you a real-life example: Coffee
farmers in Uganda sell to a world market in which prices are
quoted in dollars. World coffee prices are slumping. The
coffee farmers may be poor to start with-coffee farmers are
not rich in Uganda or in many other countries. Uganda
receives more foreign aid. And this leads to more demand for
non-traded goods-non-imports-including workers' labor. So
demand rises for the currency that pays for these goods -
the Uganda shilling. The shilling becomes relatively more
valuable relative to the dollar. What that means is that the
Ugandan selling his coffee for dollars gets fewer shillings
for each dollar he makes. Suddenly his income is going down
even more. And the international competitiveness of all
Ugandan products declines. So "Dutch Disease" refers to a
situation where a significant inflow of external resources
(whether for oil, remittances, or foreign assistance) leads
to an appreciation of the exchange rate that may adversely
affect the export sector.
Q: Given that scenario, can aid be a bad thing?
A: No. On balance, foreign assistance for
low-income countries is a good thing, and we recognize that
most of the literature indicates that aid facilitates
growth. Although the Dutch Disease is a concern to be aware
of, we shouldn't make too much of it, at least not at this
point. Our perspective in the IMF increasingly is: bring the
money on, and if it really starts posing important
macroeconomic challenges then we will work with governments
to try to address these challenges in a way supportive of
growth and poverty reduction. For instance, in middle-income
countries, maybe you need to import Sri Lankan or Filipino
nurses if you don't have the local nurses on hand. The
important thing to emphasize is that if foreign assistance
can expand productive capacity, there should not be a
significant problem with the Dutch Disease effect over the
longer term. Certainly, HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention
should be a very supply-inducing kind of intervention.
Suddenly people, who hadn't been able to work, can work
again. Children, who had had to replace their parents in the
fields, can go to school. This is all for the good.
Q: Now that major funding has begun, how long will it
continue?
A: Governments do face the question: can they
count on this money for long enough to feel comfortable
hiring nurses and doctors? Or do governments lack confidence
that this money will come in a year from now? If it doesn't,
that could mean a need to release the newly hired nurses and
doctors. Given the history of volatility of aid resources,
predictability is an enormous concern to countries,
especially given the nature of HIV/AIDS treatment. Once
you've put someone on antiretrovirals, you're putting them
on, hopefully, for the rest of their lives. It's not a
situation in which you can put them on and say, "Oops, we
don't have them this year; we didn't get the money."
Q: What can be done to make aid funds flow steadily
and predictably?
A: At least two ideas are being discussed. Gordon
Brown [Chancellor of the Exchequer of the U.K. and Chairman
of the International Monetary and Financial Committee, the
ministerial body that provides twice-yearly guidance to the
IMF] has proposed an International Finance Facility,
intended to provide the financial resources for a larger and
more reliable flow of aid. Jeffrey Sachs [Director of the
Earth Institute at Columbia University] has been arguing
that more money should be provided to the World Bank through
the coming International Development Association
replenishment to make possible larger long-term commitments.
There has been a tremendous effort by the IMF, among others,
to emphasize to donors the need for greater predictability
and stability in foreign assistance. The trouble is that
parliaments don't pass budgets for 10-year periods. Not
surprisingly, donors find it hard to promise assistance for
more than a few years.
Q: Has the success in lowering the cost of
antiretroviral drugs helped to ease the problems of
financing HIV/AIDS work?
A: Certainly. But we must not lose sight of the
fact that pharmaceuticals do not account for all costs. The
lowest cost that I have seen for generic antiretrovirals is
about $150 a year. But the total cost of treatment is about
$450 a year, so the labor and systems cost is about $300 a
year. That is, the actual drug is only one-third of the cost
of having someone on antiretrovirals.
Q: Is the IMF involved in the debate over generic
versus brand-name pharmaceuticals?
A: It's not in our direct mandate, but we would
support initiatives for countries to be able to use generic
drugs, either that they produce themselves or buy from
third-party producers. Because they're cheaper, so a lot
more people get treated.
Q: Discussion of financing for HIV/AIDS prevention and
treatment in the developing world tends to focus largely on
Africa. Should the geographical boundaries be expanded?
A: AIDS is a terribly important issue for
countries including India and China. In India, even with far
lower prevalence rates, the number of people with HIV/AIDS
may reach levels, in the next decade, that are as large as
any other country in the world. But in terms of new money
and resources coming into those countries, it's not going to
create potential macroeconomic problems, so it isn't likely
to significantly influence the IMF's surveillance
discussions with these countries. It would of course concern
us as an important underlying structural problem affecting
real growth rates, and creating demand for health
expenditure. There are a lot of poor people in those
countries, there is a big HIV/AIDS problem, and even larger
health sector problems. We would certainly approve of more
Official Development Assistance being channeled to countries
like China and India.
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Poverty Reduction:
IEO report: Poverty
reduction strategy has fallen short of its potential
The strategy that the IMF and the World Bank have followed
for the past five years to help fight poverty in low-income
countries has fallen short of its potential, the Fund's
Independent Evaluation Office has concluded.
That assessment of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers
(PRSP) and Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) grew out
of a detailed study based on internal IMF documents, stakeholder
surveys and country background studies for Guinea, Vietnam,
Nicaragua, Mozambique, Tajikistan, and Tanzania. The World
Bank's Operations Evaluation Department joined in some of the
research.
In launching the PRSP and PRGF in 1999, the IMF and the World
Bank aimed to promote country ownership of anti-poverty
programs. The papers defining growth-oriented, poverty-fighting
strategies would be written by the countries themselves. Lending
and debt-relief programs of the IMF and World Bank would grow
out of these strategies. The PRGF-under which the IMF makes
loans to poverty-plagued nations-was designed to make "pro-poor"
growth the centerpiece of IMF-supported programs.
The evaluation did find some improvements in lending
programs. Anti-poverty spending has increased, although
questions remain about how "pro-poor" was some of this spending.
Programs show greater fiscal flexibility to accommodate higher
aid flows. And the IMF-backed programs require fewer structural
conditions.
Nevertheless, these improvements do not add up to the
envisioned sweeping creation of country-owned strategies, the
evaluators said. A major reason for the gap between expectations
and results is that incentives focus on producing documents, the
evaluation said. Also, benchmarks that measure actual progress
are scarce. And little attention is given to differences between
countries. Another deficiency is that the PRSP process has not
met the goal of fostering debate in poor countries that extends
beyond elite circles to the broad populace, including the poor
themselves.
Recommendations addressed to countries and to the IMF/World
Bank for upgrading the PRSP/PRGF process include:
- The setting of benchmarks in each country; these would
be open to public scrutiny.
- Preparation of clear, candid assessments of progress in
each country by IMF and World Bank staff.
- Development of IMF tasks and priorities tailored to each
country's circumstances, as opposed to uniform standards for
IMF work in all low-income countries.
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Vatican conference on
poverty and globalization
The call to reduce the debt burden of poor countries is being
sounded again, as concern mounts that the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) may be beyond reach of the poorest countries. While
greater assistance for many countries is clearly needed, the
suggested strategy for fighting poverty faces major practical
obstacles, a senior IMF official told a Vatican conference in
July.
"On the political front, the constraints to funding debt
relief have been severe and the generosity of some of the major
creditor countries has been limited, not least because of the
weak constituencies for foreign assistance in some of the larger
countries," Jack Boorman, consultant and advisor to IMF
management, said at a seminar organized by the Pontifical
Council for Justice and Peace in Vatican City.
The one-day meeting, "Poverty and Globalization: Financing
for Development, including the Millennium Development Goals,"
took place on July 9. Other participants included Gordon Brown,
U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer, and chairman of the
International Monetary and Financial Committee, along with
representatives of the UN and Catholic NGOs, as well as senior
members of the church hierarchy. Representatives of Civil
Society Organizations from countries in the global South,
including Argentina and Zambia, spoke as well.
Brown lent a note of urgency to the proceedings, depicting
prospects for the MDGs as poor under present conditions. Hope
for the Goals, he said, lies in adoption of the proposed
International Finance Facility (IFF), which is designed to
provide up to $50 billion a year in new development assistance
between now and 2015 through the proceeds of bond issues to be
repaid by donor countries. Brown also called for greater debt
relief for the poorest countries, especially their debt to
multilateral organizations.
Jean-Pierre Landau, a director of the European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development and a former Executive Director
of the IMF from France, said that France supports the IFF. But
he laid out other ideas tentatively proposed by a French
presidential committee assigned to devise ways of creating new
aid resources. These include taxes on armaments, on carbon
emission, and on international currency transactions. The last
is the so-called "Tobin tax," proposed by Nobel laureate
economist James Tobin of Yale University. Supporters of the
proposed tax estimate that it could bring in revenues of $100
billion-$300 billion a year.
For all of the discussion of ideas to expand the supply of
aid funds aimed at the poorest countries, debt relief -
including proposed 100 percent write-offs - was the theme most
consistently sounded.
In his remarks, Boorman said that debt relief should be
viewed in the context of all aid channeled to poor countries.
Seen in that light, canceling debt is only one way to direct
more funds into social service programs in poor countries, and
may not be the most effective way. More financing from donor
countries and multilateral lenders is clearly needed to increase
the total amount of resources available to fight poverty and to
help the poorer countries meet or at least approach the MDGs.
But access to new lending by donor countries can be jeopardized
by debt relief. When donors grant debt relief, they sometimes
compensate by making fewer new aid funds available, Boorman
said. From donors' perspective, the step is logical, because
both debt relief and new financing draw on national budgets.
Boorman also urged the wealthier countries to consider raising
the amount of aid they give in the form of grants, as opposed to
loans, thereby protecting countries from seeing their debt loads
reach unsustainable levels.
Debt relief may be appropriate in some cases in which debt
has already reached unsustainable levels, Boorman acknowledged.
But widespread debt cancellation raises two other issues apart
from the risk to new lending. One is that some level of
obligation may be necessary for the creation or strengthening of
a "credit culture," Boorman argued. The second issue is one of
equitable treatment. Some poor countries would not be eligible
for debt relief because they have managed their finances and
debt obligations prudently. Paradoxically, this would penalize
them vis-à-vis countries that benefit from a debt write-off.
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Civil Society-IMF
Dialogue:
IMF/World Bank dialogue with
World Council of Churches moves ahead
On May 7, IMF and World Bank staff participated in a meeting
with representatives of the World Council of Churches (WCC) at
its headquarters in Geneva. It was the fourth in a series of
meetings that was initiated in 2002 by correspondence between
Konrad Raiser, then General Secretary of the WCC, and former IMF
Managing Director Horst Köhler and World Bank President James
Wolfensohn. The purposes of the meeting were to review progress
in the discussions thus far, and to plan for a possible meeting
between the heads of the organizations.
The review of discussions (see
Civil Society Newsletter, February 2004) between the Bretton
Woods Institutions (BWIs) and the WCC was based partly on two
papers distributed at the meeting, one written by WCC
representatives, and one prepared by Graham Hacche, Deputy
Director of the IMF's External Relations Department, which
attempted to clarify areas of agreement and isolate areas of
disagreement between the WCC and the BWIs. WCC representatives
said that their three main areas of interest for further
discussion with the BWIs, including at the planned high-level
meeting, are: how to eradicate poverty; justice and human
rights; and the "democratization" of the BWIs. The Bank's
Katherine Marshall, Director and Counsellor to the President on
Values and Ethics, referred to the WCC's apparent
underestimation of the importance of the MDGs to the work of the
BWIs, and also stated that the Bank's position on human rights
was evolving, as were the BWIs' policies on debt reduction and
restructuring.
With regard to the planned "high-level meeting", the three
parties discussed possible venues, and format. One of the
outcomes of such a meeting sought by the WCC would be a public
statement of common concerns and objectives. The IMF pointed to
the need for more work, whether before or after the high-level
meeting, to clarify common ground and divergences of view. As
the previous October 2003 meeting in Washington had come to the
conclusion that case studies needed to be undertaken to reach
greater clarity, participants suggested using the findings of a
case study on Honduras, currently being conducted by the German
churches, and, at the suggestion of the Bank and Fund
representatives, one on Tanzania.
Plans for the case studies, a possible subsequent staff
meeting to discuss them, and the high-level meeting, will evolve
in the coming weeks.
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Letters from the
Field:
Managing Director de Rato meets with Vietnamese NGOs
Susan Adams, Senior Resident Representative, Vietnam
During his visit to Hanoi on June 26, 2004, Managing Director
Rodrigo de Rato requested a special meeting with local and
international NGOs in Vietnam. He met later that day with
representatives from five NGOs (two local and three
international). He briefed them on the relations between Vietnam
and the IMF; and asked about the particular challenges faced by
civil society in Vietnam, and how the IMF could strengthen its
partnership with civil society in the country.
The NGO representatives covered a variety of issues,
including: the growing problem of HIV/AIDS; the rollout of the
Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy of Vietnam to the
local/grassroots level; the challenges of developing local human
resource capacity; and the linkages between monetary policy and
microfinancing.
The Managing Director noted especially the NGOs' concern
about the spread of HIV/AIDS and the authorities' cautious
response, particularly on the importation of low-cost
antiretroviral drugs. The NGOs attributed this cautious stance
to concerns that the importation of such medicines at this time
might jeopardize Vietnam's negotiations to join the World Trade
Organization (WTO). In that regard, de Rato pointed out that new
WTO rules now provided legal options for poor countries to
import low-cost medicines from third countries to deal with
public health problems such as HIV/AIDS. If those rules were not
clear, however, they should be clarified, and the Fund should be
an advocate for poor countries in that regard. Later in the
week, the IMF Hanoi Office followed up on this discussion by
attending a conference on the trade and legal aspects of the
HIV/AIDS problem in Vietnam.
Vietnam was de Rato's last stop on a week-long tour to Asia
in late June, which took him also to Japan, China, and
Singapore. This was also his first official travel as Managing
Director of the IMF.
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A letter from Quito
David Yuravlivker, Resident Representative, Ecuador
In April, I participated in a meeting sponsored by UNDP to
evaluate past dialogue between the government and civil society
in Ecuador. The motivation was the government's plan to launch a
new round of consultations with civil society on a poverty
reduction strategy. There were about 35 attending, including
indigenous movements, women's groups, academics, journalists,
former high government officials, and local government
representatives. Among the lessons drawn were the following:
- There is no single methodology that fits all types of
dialogue. A lot of thought and preparation are
needed to bring about a fruitful dialogue.
- To achieve results, it helps to focus on a small
number of well-defined issues and to enlist the support of
well-chosen facilitators. In 1998, some 25-30 leaders
from various sectors and political groups met in closed,
intensive periodic retreats to discuss solutions to the
Ecuador-Peru conflict (the Cousin dialogue). Two former
presidents from the region were the facilitators. The
meeting reached a consensus to support the peace process,
which led to the 1998 peace agreement, signed by presidents
Mahuad and Fujimori.
- Developing a culture of dialogue builds social
capital and has value in and of itself. The national
dialogue organized by the indigenous movement in 2003, at
the start of the current administration, contributed to
developing a culture of seeking consensus through dialogue.
However, for proposals to materialize there is often a need
to overcome limitations in the operations of public sector
systems and to ensure continuous commitment from the highest
levels of government.
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A field trip to Haute Guinée
Dennis Jones, Resident Representative, Guinea
My field trip to Haute Guinée with AFRICARE gave me
first-hand insight into the development needs of some of the
isolated parts of Guinea. For a visitor, first there is the
problem of access. The trip takes nine hours by road from
Conakry (the last 100 km on wholly unpaved roads), and villages
have no true road access. The rains did not cause us too many
problems going, but on the return trip, the heavens opened, and
three hours were added to the journey. Second, communication by
other means is virtually nonexistent-there has been no phone
service since 2002. And many conveniences that we take for
granted, such as electricity and water, can also be absent or
difficult to obtain outside the main town.
We found many other problems that affect the lives of people
in such remote areas. In that context, it was good to see a
number of projects bearing results in terms of agricultural
production (new crops, new techniques, longer and more stable
production cycles); grain storage, food transformation (soy
milk, dried vegetables, oils and creams from nuts); nutrition
(nutrition plans, well digging and maintenance, and water
treatment); health education (for mothers and infants mainly,
but also wider education on sexually transmitted diseases and
HIV/AIDS awareness); and literacy programs. Many of the projects
focus on empowering local groups, with the aid of field
coordinators, which often results in strong women's groups that
are motivated and appear to moving toward self-sustainability.
As income-generating activities develop, greater awareness and
use of financial systems become evident, mainly through
established micro-finance institutions such as Crédit Rural.
These groups seem to be working well, with the local authorities
giving visible support, and also assistance from other agencies.
The three villages we visited were of significantly different
sizes (one about 100 inhabitants, another of some 800, and the
last about 2000), and had had AFRICARE involvement for different
periods, which has allowed some assessment of how the projects
and the communities can develop. The range of problems to be
tackled has moved from mainly questions of availability of basic
resources toward matters of internal administration and how to
take charge when AFRICARE's direct involvement phases out. This
indicates that progress is being made, but highlights the
importance of ensuring that clear systems of accountability and
for measuring continuing progress (e.g. financial record keeping
and health indicators) are put in place.
For more information on AFRICARE, please visit:
http://www.usaid.gov/gn/nrm/news/030411_foodforpeace/africareindinguiraye.htm.
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Other recent meetings between IMF staff and CSOs
- On May 12, the Nicaragua mission team, headed by
mission chief Philip Young, met with Nicaraguan and British
NGOs at IMF headquarters in Washington to discuss the
country's economic progress on issues such as external debt,
taxation, and the budget.
- On June 3, Global Witness, a U.K.-based NGO that
works on the issue of extractive industries transparency,
met with Menachem Katz, Assistant Director of the IMF's
African Department, Bill Allan and Günther Taube, Section
Chief and Senior Economist respectively, Fiscal Affairs
Department (FAD), and Anton Op de Beke, Senior Economist in
the Policy Development and Review Department (PDR). They
also attended a meeting with IMF staff and other
Washington-based NGOs. Global Witness asked IMF staff to
adopt best practice by individual country teams and Fund
departments into the Fund's overall policy and to make
revenue transparency a condition of all IMF lending and
technical assistance programs.
- Klaus Enders, Assistant Director of the IMF Offices in
Europe, participated in a panel discussion on "Does the HIPC
Initiative Reach the Poor?" at the bi-annual
Katholikentag, the German Catholics' Conference, June
17-18 in Ulm, Germany. Other panelists included
representatives from NGOs, faith-based organizations, and
the German Development Ministry.
- On June 21, Peter Heller, FAD's Deputy Director, met
with U.K.-based NGOs in London to discuss general issues
associated with the Fund's role in low-income countries and
more specifically on aid absorption for HIV/AIDS. He
also met separately three members of a Parliamentary
committee working to strengthen the U.K.'s response to the
HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa.
- On July 22-23, Jean-Pierre Chauffour, IMF Representative
to the WTO, who also liaises with the Geneva-based UN
agencies, attended the UN-Social Forum on Human Rights
and Poverty, an initiative of the UN Sub-Commission on
the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. This second
round of the Social Forum focused on the contribution of
human rights approaches to the fight against poverty at the
national and international levels. It was organized around
four panels, of which two were of more direct relevance to
the Fund: (1) poverty and human rights: empowerment of
people living in poverty; and (2) the role of human rights
in the development of operational strategies to address
poverty. The proposed rights-based approach, as some
participants highlighted, resonates with many features of
existing poverty reduction strategies (PRSs) supported by
the Bretton Woods Institutions.
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Upcoming events
- The
2004
Annual Meetings of the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund and related meetings and events will be held
in Washington, D.C. on October 2-3, 2004. As always, a
number of policy dialogue sessions for interested CSO
representatives will be organized before and during the
Meetings. CSO representatives, like all other visitors, must
apply for accreditation in order to gain access to the
Annual Meetings venues and related events. For the 2004
Annual Meetings CSOs can request accreditation through a new
web-based accreditation system at:
https://www.imf.org/external/am/2004/csoreg/reg.asp. The
system was launched on July 1 and applications for
accreditation from interested CSOs will be accepted through
September 3. If you are interested in participating in the
Annual Meetings, please apply for accreditation as soon as
possible, and immediately proceed to obtain a visa to enter
the U.S., if necessary. More information on the
accreditation process can be found at:
http://www.worldbank.org/civilsociety/.
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Inside the IMF
- The Fund formally set up a dedicated PSIA group
in July, 2004 (see
Civil Society Newsletter May 2004). This initiative is
the most recent example of the Fund's recognition of the
need for a more systematic approach to integrating poverty
and the social impact of policies into the design of
PRGF-supported programs. The group is situated at the Fiscal
Affairs Department of the Fund, within the Expenditure
Policy Division, and will be made up of four experts. Two
experts joined as of July 1. David Coady, who previously
worked at the International Food Policy Research Institute
(IFPRI) in Washington, has extensive experience in the
analysis of tax reform, social expenditures, and program
evaluation. Prior to joining IFPRI, Coady was an academic at
both University and Queen Mary Colleges in London. Moataz
El-Said, who also worked previously at IFPRI, has extensive
experience in the application of quantitative techniques to
policy issues such as trade and price liberalization and
their implications for poverty reduction efforts. The
remaining staff is expected to join in the coming months.
-
Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Director of the Independent
Evaluation Office (IEO) since it was set up in 2001,
resigned in June to become Deputy Chairman of India's
Planning Commission (the Chairman being the Prime Minister).
IMF Management and the Executive Board congratulated him on
his appointment and expressed their appreciation for his
work at the IEO. Ahluwalia also received much feedback from
CSOs who said they were saddened by the news of his
departure and expressed their respect for the integrity and
professionalism he brought to the IEO. David Goldsbrough,
the IEO's Deputy Director, will serve as Acting Director
until a successor is found.
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Selected speeches
-
Opening Remarks by Mr. Agustín Carstens, Deputy Managing
Director, at the Third Regional Conference on Central
America, San Pedro Sula, Honduras, July 8, 2004
-
The IMF at 60: Equipped for Today's Challenges? Address
to the American Academy, by Anne O. Krueger, First Deputy
Managing Director, Berlin, June 23, 2004
-
Trade, Jobs and Growth: Why You Can't Have One Without the
Others, address by Anne O. Krueger, First Deputy
Managing Director, Reuters Trade, Globalization and
Outsourcing Conference, New York City, June 15, 2004
-
The IMF at 60-Evolving Challenges, Evolving Role,
opening remarks by Rodrigo de Rato y Figaredo, Managing
Director, at the Conference on "Dollars, Debts and
Deficits-60 Years After Bretton Woods", Madrid, Spain, June
14, 2004
-
Economic Growth in a Shrinking World: The IMF and
Globalization, address by Anne O. Krueger, Acting
Managing Director, to the Pacific Council on International
Policy, San Diego, June 2, 2004
-
Address to the World Trade Organization General Council,
by Anne O. Krueger, Acting Managing Director, Geneva, May
18, 2004
Back to Table of Contents
Selected publications
-
Educating Children in Poor Countries, by Arye L.
Hillman, Eva Jenkner, Economic Issues No. 33
-
The End of Textiles Quotas: A Case Study of the Impact on
Bangladesh, Montfort P. Mlachila, Yongzheng Yang, Policy
Development and Review Department, Working Paper No. 04/108
-
Debt Accumulation in the CIS-7 Countries: Bad Luck, Bad
Policies, or Bad Advice, by Thomas F. Helbling, Ratna
Sahay, Ashoka Mody, Research Department, Working Paper No.
04/93
-
Does Financial Globalization Induce Better Macroeconomic
Policies? By Irina Tytell, Shang-Jin Wei, Research
Department, Working Paper No. 04/84
-
The IMF and the Force of History: Ten Events and Ten Ideas
that Have Shaped the Institution, by James M. Boughton,
Policy Development and Review Department, Working Paper No.
04/75
-
How Has NAFTA Affected the Mexican Economy? Review and
Evidence, by Guy M. Meredith, Western Hemisphere
Department, Ayhan Kose, Christopher M Towe, Research
Department, Working Paper No. 04/59
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