International NGO, GRAIN, argues that the food crisis facing the world and particularly the developing world can be linked to more than three decades of IMF and World Bank inspired structural adjustment programmes. The current problem is more than one of a food shortage or a price blip. It is one where the food system is experiencing a structural meltdown. At the same time, big profits are being made by several food corporations and investors.
Robert Weissman - Tuberculosis, a treatable disease, kills 1.7 million people a year worldwide. TB incidence, according to the World Health Organization seems to be correlated to broad social factors, like access to clean water and sanitation, HIV incidence and national health expenditures. A just published study in the journal PLoS (Public Library of Science) Medicine investigates the role of a different possible explanatory factor: the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The researchers’ study focuses...
This excerpt from the Massachusetts School of Law argues that the IMF and World Bank compelled Latin American nations to make structural adjustments, which are a form of neoliberal economics that include privatization and open markets. Open markets and less regulation in Latin America, as well as in other developing countries, have led to the destruction of small businesses, as large companies from America and other parts of the developed world entered their markets. The video clip is...
Saliem Fakir - There is no doubt that we live in an uncertain period. Since 9/11, the world has changed. Global governance is in flux and generally speaking, the outcome of our transforming world is still unknown. The conventional source and centre of power is beginning to shift. This centre of power largely an alliance between the United States (US) and Europe, which Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt aptly called Empire, is what we have come to accept as the de facto world in which we live, by which we...
Pinky Show - The socially conscious cats from the Pinky Show have developed a simple but accurate account of the World Bank and IMF's (International Monetary Fund's) role in globalising our world and particularly its economy. The cartoon is highly recommended for its clarity in demystifying the role of the developing world's super bankers, who far from alleviating poverty, actually aggravate it.