[stop-imf] Action Alert: Legislation to end user fees, open MDB meetings (US)

[Robert Weissman]

Action Alert

Support H.R. 2604 to End User Fees and Open the Meetings of
Multilateral Development Banks

Support the Schakowsky Amendment to Reform Multilateral Development Bank
Policy on Water

Friends:

On Friday morning, a Congressional subcommittee (the International
Monetary Policy and Trade Subcommittee of the House Financial Services
Committee ) will consider an authorization of new resources for the Asian
Development Fund.

Please contact members of the subcommittee and ask them to support
Chairman Bereuter's bill. The bill contains important provisions which
will help eliminate harmful and failed user fee policies that deny
millions of children access to primary school and millions of families
access to the most basic health services, and which direct the
Administration to work towards open Board meetings of the Multilateral
Development Banks (MDBs).

Please also ask members to support an amendment which will be offered by
Representative Jan Schakowsky of Illinois to enhance poor people's access
to clean water, and to support an amendment which will be offered by
Representative Barbara Lee of California to require the U.S. to oppose
financing for dams that involve forced relocation.

The Schakowsky amendment would require the U.S. to effectively oppose
policies that increase fees for poor consumers to access clean drinking
water. Such policies have caused poor people to lose access to clean
drinking water, and thus to become susceptible to water-borne diseases as
a result of drinking unsafe water.

The Bereuter bill and the Schakowsky amendment are supported by the
Jubilee USA Network, and RESULTS, among others.

Representative Barbara Lee will introduce an amendment which would require
the U.S. to oppose financing by the regional development banks of large
dam projects that do not comply with the recommendations of the World
Commission on Dams (this would effectively bar financing for dams that
involve forced relocation.) The Lee Amendment is supported by the
International Rivers Network, among others.

Calls to Republican offices are particularly needed. The Republican
members of the subcommittee are:

Doug Bereuter
Doug Ose
Marge Roukema
Richard H. Baker
Michael N. Castle
Jim Ryun
Donald A. Manzullo
Judy Biggert
Mark Green
Patrick J. Toomey
Christopher Shays
Gary G. Miller
Shelley Moore Capito
Mike Ferguson

The Democratic Members of the subcommittee
include:

Maxine Waters
Barney Frank
Melvin L. Watt
Paul E. Kanjorski
Brad Sherman
Carolyn B. Maloney
Luis V. Gutierrez
Ken Bentsen
John J. LaFalce(ex officio)

The Capitol switchboard can be reached at 202-225-3121. Ask to be
transferred to the Member's office, ask for the staff member who handles
the international monetary policy and trade subcommittee, and tell the
staffer or leave him/her a message saying that you would like
Representative X to support the Bereuter bill and the Schakowsky and Lee
Amendments.

Thank you for this action. Although the provisions of this legislation
only apply to the regional development banks, the passage of this
legislation will set an important precedent for when Congress considers
appropriations for the World Bank next year.

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More information on why the Schakowsky amendment is needed:

=E1 In Ghana, the majority of all diseases seen in clinics are
water-related. A "full cost recovery" pricing plan increased water prices
by 95 percent in May 2001. Water-borne guinea worm has been making a
comeback in a region of Ghana where a water and sanitation project
required unaffordable capital contributions from local communities as a
precondition for installing standpipes and boreholes.

=E1 In South Africa, when "increased cost recovery" policies led to water
supply cuts for people who were too poor to pay their accounts, this
resulted in the outbreak of a cholera epidemic in KwaZulu-Natal.

=E1 Access to clean water is a vital public health necessity in developing
countries, where the threat of water-borne disease is great. Protecting
the health of the populace by protecting and increasing access to safe
drinking water should be the top priority of U.S. policy. Development
loans for water sector projects by the MDBs that include policies that
impede access of the poor to clean water should be opposed.

=E1 Currently, MDB water sector policies are primarily directed toward
reducing public subsidies for poor people to access clean drinking water
and imposing increased "cost recovery" (increased prices for consumers)
for drinking water without protecting poor water consumers and without
ensuring expanded access for poor people and marginalized communities.

=E1 Over two million children die each year of diarrheal diseases related t=
o
the lack of access to clean water. In developing countries, water-borne
diseases are the second most common cause of morbidity and mortality.
Diarrheal diseases due to pathogens such as cholera, E.coli, shigella,
amoebas and giardia account for up to half of all clinic visits.

=E1 More than 1 billion people lack access to clean drinking water and
approximately 2.5 billion people (more than one-third of the world's
population) have no sanitary means of excreta disposal.

=E1 When water becomes more expensive and therefore less accessible, people
in poor countries often resort to water from polluted streams and rivers.
This increases the risk of diarrheal diseases, including cholera and
parasitic diseases.



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Robert Weissman=09<rob@essential.org>
Essential Information
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