| |
Contributions from
the Column
Studies and reports
The world trade system leaves poor countries too little scope
Slight rise in German ODA
Africa: back to the roots is the wrong direction
Humanitarian aid can be impartial, but not neutral
Immunisation initiative: Nelson Mandela calls for participation
German hearing on GATS: different positions
Proposal for insolvency rights buried quietly
An oil pipeline
|
|
World Bank and IMF Spring Meeting
Proposal for insolvency rights buried quietly
By Ann-Kathrin Schneider
Preoccupation with the reconstruction of Iraq contributed to the IMF proposal for a sovereign debt restructuring mechanism (SDRM) being quietly buried at the Spring Meeting of the World Bank and IMF in Washington DC, April 12-13. Already in the week before the meeting, US Treasury Secretary John Snow had spoken out plainly against the proposal by IMF First Deputy Managing Director Anne Krueger and thus shattered any hope of voting on this issue. The final communiqué of the IMF's International Monetary and Financial Committee said tersely "it was not possible to get the SDRM through". On the one hand, representatives of debt relief initiatives around the world regretted the sudden end of the SDRM because it had served as an important reference point in the debate on a fair debt relief process. On the other hand, they welcomed the fact that the IMF proposal was now off the table because it had anyway not gone far enough. Civil society hopes are now directed at the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), which as part of the follow-up to the Monterrey conference on Financing for Development is to discuss new debt relief processes.
The focus of the debate on the reconstruction of Iraq was the question of whether the World Bank and IMF could not work there until the UN Security Council commissioned it to do so. Also on this question, the USA would not be done out of showing its aversion to action within the framework of the United Nations, while the majority of the other member countries spoke out for UN authorisation. The debate ended in a compromise. The USA bowed to the concern of above all the Europeans and now aims to endorse a UN resolution which is to secure the widest possible support for an engagement in Iraq by the World Bank and IMF. However, regardless of such a resolution it was agreed that the two institutions would as soon as the security situation in Iraq permitted send a fact-finding mission there to ascertain the costs of its reconstruction .
The war in Iraq also edged out of the Spring Meeting agenda a detailed debate on reform of the management structures of the World Bank and IMF. During the week before the meeting the two institutions decided to equip their African executive directors with three technical consultants each. The US side hoped this measure would nip in the bud the discussion on a better say in affairs for the developing countries. Germany, Canada, India and Italy in fact argued for the debate to be continued after the meeting. But it is doubtful that the two institutions' shortcomings in democracy will then be tackled seriously.
|
