IMF Formula : Prescription for Poverty
The IMF Formula: Prescription for Poverty by John Cavanagh, Carol Welch and Simon Retallack IFG Bulletin, 2001, Volume 1, Issue 3, International Forum on Globalization When the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank announced at their 1999 annual meeting that poverty reduction would henceforth be their overarching goal, this sudden "conversion" provoked justifiable skepticism. The history of the IMF shows that it has consistently elevated the need for financial and monetary "stability" above any other concern. Through its notorious structural adjustment programs (SAPs), it has imposed harsh economic reforms in over 100 countries in the developing and former communist worlds, throwing hundreds of millions of people deeper into poverty. The IMF came to hold virtual neo-colonial control over developing countries as a result of the Third World "debt crisis" of the 1980s. In the 1970s, commercial banks were eager to make large loans to developin...