PHA-Exchange> HIV and the IMF/World Bank

[Claudio]

> HIV and the IMF/World Bank
> --------------------------
> 
> "Blocking Progress: How the Fight against HIV/AIDS is being Un-
> dermined by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund"
> 
> A new policy briefing by ActionAid International USA, Global
> AIDS Alliance, Student Global AIDS Campaign, and RESULTS Educa-
> tional Fund is now available (PDF 27 pp. 691 kB) at:
> http://www.actionaidusa.org/blockingprogress.pdf
> 
> * Is the International Monetary Fund more concerned with keeping
> inflation low and maintaining "macroeconomic stability" than
> enabling governments in poor countries to save lives impacted by
> the HIV/AIDS pandemic?
> 
> * Why are more than 4,000 trained nurses and thousands other
> health workers in Kenya sitting unemployed when they should be
> working to combat the HIV/AIDS emergency in their country?
> 
> In advance of the Annual Fall Meetings of the International
> Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, a new report accuses the
> IMF of undermining the fight against AIDS. The report by four
> humanitarian agencies says that despite the severity of the AIDS
> crisis, IMF restrictions on public spending in poor countries
> are making it difficult for countries to hire more doctors,
> nurses, and health workers, as well as to buy the medicines re-
> quired to fight the HIV/AIDS pandemic effectively. The IMF's
> spending constraints may also block poor countries from accept-
> ing desperately-needed outside help. In 2002-2003, for example,
> the African nation of Uganda, which faces a major AIDS crisis,
> nearly rejected a $52 million grant from the Global Fund to
> Fight AIDS, TB & Malaria because it sought to stay within the
> strict budgetary constraints it had agreed to maintain in order
> to acquire loans from the IMF.
> 
> At the recent international AIDS Conference in Bangkok, United
> Nations experts called for a massive increase in financing for
> AIDS programs, urging that $20 billion be provided to developing
> countries by 2007. The report argues that IMF policies that seek
> to keep inflation at very low levels do so at the cost of block-
> ing higher public spending on fighting AIDS. But the report
> notes that many economists think inflation and public spending
> could go higher, and therefore IMF policies are unjustifiably
> undermining the global fight against AIDS.
> 
> "This report should be real wake-up call to people concerned
> about the alarming impact of AIDS on prospects for development
> and stability," stated Dr. Paul Zeitz, Executive Director of the
> Global AIDS Alliance. "It shows the terrible price we could pay
> if a rigid adherence to economic orthodoxy wins out over common
> sense."
> 
> "The IMF's insistence on very low inflation targets must be
> scrutinized," said the report's principle author, Rick Rowden,
> of ActionAid International USA. "This issue must be brought into
> the center of public debate if countries are ever to be allowed
> to scale-up public health spending effectively to fight
> HIV/AIDS."
> 
> The report also argues that the IMF policies make it more diffi-
> cult for countries to retain critically-important health care
> workers, as a result of the IMF's caps on the amount of money
> countries can spend for public health sector employees.
> 
> The low-inflation targets set by the IMF lead directly to limits
> on the national budgets of poor countries, which lead to ceil-
> ings on national health budgets. "Most poor countries would like
> to significantly increase spending on fighting AIDS," says
> Joanne Carter, Legislative Director of RESULTS Educational Fund,
> a US-based citizens lobby group that focuses on combating tuber-
> culosis and other "diseases of poverty" in developing countries.
> "But they have given up trying to fight against the IMF because
> they know that they must comply with IMF loans just to keep
> their access to the current levels of foreign aid they are al-
> ready receiving. If you go against the IMF, you risk getting
> cut-off from all other sources of foreign aid."
> 
> Speaking at the World Bank in November 2003, UNAIDS Executive
> Director Peter Piot stated, "When I hear that countries are
> choosing to comply with the...[budget] ceilings at the expense
> of adequately funding AIDS programs, it strikes me that someone
> isn't looking hard enough for sound alternatives."
> 
> The report notes that because the IMF is basically unaccountable
> to citizens of any one country, citizens must call on their own
> governments to ensure that the decisions they make on the IMF
> Board of Executive Directors do not undermine the fight against
> HIV/AIDS. The four groups call on AIDS activists and health pro-
> fessionals concerned with combating the spread of HIV/AIDS to
> address this issue of ceilings on public spending in developing
> countries with their own Finance Ministries or Treasury Depart-
> ments, which dispatch representatives to the IMF Executive
> Board. "Citizens should call for their own governments to take
> steps at the IMF board to change the low-inflation targets that
> are conditions in IMF loans that unnecessarily constrain health
> spending in countries with AIDS emergencies," said co-author
> Adam Taylor, founder of the US university-based Student Global
> AIDS Campaign.
> 
> The report highlights that citizens of the seven wealthiest, in-
> dustrialized countries (G7), whose governments have the most in-
> fluence on the IMF Executive Board, have a special obligation to
> call on their Finance Ministries or Treasury Departments to take
> immediate action on the issue. Paul Zeitz of Global AIDS Alli-
> ance said, "US citizens have the biggest responsibility to call
> on the US Treasury Department to take immediate steps at the IMF
> to abolish the IMF's low-inflation targets that are limiting
> spending on HIV/AIDS in the world's poorest countries. The US
> Treasury Department must act now if the countries are to be en-
> abled to significantly increase their own spending and accept
> more foreign aid in order to scale-up the fight against
> HIV/AIDS."
> 
> The policy briefing will be released at a special Teach-In for
> AIDS Activists and NGOs at the 4th Floor offices of the UN Foun-
> dation at 1225 Connecticut Avenue NW Washington DC on Thursday
> evening September 30th from 5-7pm. Media are welcome to attend
> and pose questions.
> 
> Rick Rowden, ActionAid International USA
> mailto:RickR at actionaidusa.org
> 
> Joanne Carter, RESULTS Educational Fund
> mailto:carter at results.org
> 
> Paul Zeitz, Global AIDS Alliance
> mailto:pzeitz at globalaidsalliance.org
> 
> Adam Taylor, Student Global AIDS Campaign
> mailto:adamrtaylorgj at yahoo.com
> 
> Click here for the policy briefing:
> http://www.actionaidusa.org/blockingprogress.pdf
>