What are the IMF and WB?
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) are the two most powerful institutions in global finance. Through their neoliberal loan conditionalities and policy prescriptions, they have facilitated the export of surplus capital from the imperialist centers to the global South and forced these poor but resource-rich countries to surrender their sovereignty and open their economies to transnational corporations. These, among many others, have multiplied profits for imperialist countries and their transnational corporations while subjecting Third World countries to horrendous levels of inequality, poverty, unemployment, and economic decline.
What is the IMF-WB Annual Meeting?
On Oct 12 to 14, 2018 the IMF-WB will be holding their annual meeting in Bali, Indonesia. It is the world’s biggest gathering of Central Bank governors and Finance Ministers from member countries, corporate executives, and experts to discuss global development issues and draw up policies to further the corporatization of the world under the guise of “development”.
What are the agenda of the IMF-World Bank for the annual meeting in Bali, Indonesia?
Under the theme of “Maximizing Finance for Development” (MFD), the IMF and World Bank are pushing for transnational corporations to profit from the underdevelopment of the global South
- Create a favorable environment for big corporations and investors amid a prolonged financial crisis, soaring global debt and global interest rates, declining profitability, and flaming trade wars
- Revive the neoliberal agenda of privatizing public services and infrastructure, opening up critical economic sectors to foreign business, and rolling back rights historically won by people through years of struggles
- More tax cuts and government guarantees for big corporations
What is the Peoples’ Global Conference against IMF-World Bank?
- An independent initiative to register and amplify peoples’ resistance against IMF-WBG’s corporatization of development and to assert peoples’ right to chart their own path towards a democratic, just, and equitable future
- Organized by Indonesian and international civil society organizations and peoples’ movements in parallel with the IMF-WBG Annual Meeting in Bali
What do we aim to achieve?
- Expose IFIs as tools for imperialist domination and their deleterious impacts on affected communities
- Come up with strategies to resist the corporatization of development
- Strengthen the solidarity among activists and allies through dialogue and exchange as well as building links between inside and outside engagement during the 2018 IMF-WB Annual Meeting