Concurring With ActionAid That IMF And World Bank Should Refrain From Perpetuating Colonial Rule In African Countries

ActionAid is a global federation that works towards creating a world free from poverty and injustice. Founded in 1972, it operates with a focus on four main areas: women’s rights, politics and economics, land and climate, and emergency response. With a particular emphasis on women’s rights, which is a common thread through all their work.

ActionAid engages in various activities that includes tax and economic justice, where it campaigns for fair tax policies and against tax avoidance to ensure that the poorest and most marginalized communities have access to tax-funded public services.

it Integrates women’s rights into all programming and project work, and undertaking campaigns specifically focused on issues like unpaid care work, sexual harassment, and violence, and at the same time working on initiatives to address the impact of climate change on vulnerable communities.

Emergencies and humanitarian aid: Providing support and coordinating responses to crises, such as the recent earthquake in Morocco1.

In fact, ActionAid is known for being the first major international non-governmental organization (INGO) to move its headquarters from the global north to the global south, which is now located in Johannesburg, South Africa. This move signifies their commitment to being closer to the communities they serve. They work with over 15 million people in 45 countries, often through local partner organizations, to fight against poverty and support human rights.

Against the backdrop of its commitments towards the individual and collective betterment of African countries, it is not surprising that when it rose from the just concluded Spring Meeting in Washington DC that it declared, and issued a paper that the time is up for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to desist from the perpetuation of a colonial rule in African countries.

It recalled that for the 80 years the IMF and World Bank have been in existence, not much has changed. Instead, global South countries have been pushed further into debt and are reeling from the impacts of IMF-imposed austerity measures.

In its 2023 report “Fifty Years of Failure”, ActionAid found that despite following the IMF’s advice for decades, many African countries are in debt distress or facing a high risk of debt distress. Austerity measures have blocked the recruitment of teachers, doctors and nurses, even in countries with severe shortages, and has squeezed public sector salaries at a time of a rising cost of living.

Roos Saalbrink, Global Lead on Economic Justice and Public Services at ActionAid International, says, “Countries in the global South have since the structural adjustment progammes been in perpetual austerity, eroding public health and education. At a time of unprecedented climate crisis and debt crisis in the global South, the Bretton Woods Institutions continue to oil the wheels of colonial exploitation and extraction. At the same time global South governments have very little say in the policies coming from these institutions at the center of the international financial architecture. 80 years is enough.”

ActionAid is also concerned about a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ which has ensured that the IMF managing director has for 80 years been European and the World Bank president a US national.

Niranjali Amerasinghe, Country Director of ActionAid USA, says, “Kristalina Georgieva’s appointment is a continuation of the colonial era ‘gentleman’s agreement’, where rich western powers have the most say. It is unacceptable that 80 years later we are still having to call this out. The IMF must change its leadership selection process, its decision-making model, and the harmful practices that keep developing countries in a cycle of crisis. As the climate crisis wreaks havoc, global South countries are so deep in debt that they cannot adapt to these impacts. We are calling for debt cancellation and tax justice to help these countries free up the finances needed to build resilience to climate impacts.”

“We need to see an overhaul of the international financial architecture with a proper debt workout mechanism, a UN tax convention, to ensure global South governments have a say over policies impacting them disproportionately.”

This is, as ever, progressive stuff by ActionAid but it’s a monologue. It would be better if the World Bank and IMF would respond, or better the Western clique that controls the two Washington institutions. These voices are not new and neither is the silence from the West.