[stop-imf] World Bank president refutes protesters' claims - G&M]

[Robert Weissman]

The Globe and Mail				  Monday, November 19, 2001

World Bank president refutes protesters' claims

     Privatization is never advocated at the expense of public social 
     Services - James Wolfensohn

     By Heather Scoffield

Ottawa -- World Bank president James Wolfensohn is taking on the protesters
who brought downtown Ottawa traffic to a standstill this weekend, saying his
international institution is doing more for the world's poor than it gets
credit for.

In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Mr. Wolfensohn said he's been
hearing the same arguments for years, and while the World Bank has listened
-- and changed -- the protesters haven't.

"There's a need for us to change in the bank, but there's also a need for
civil society to give us credit for the ways we do change," he said.

A couple of thousand mainly peaceful protesters filled Ottawa's downtown
streets during top-level finance ministers' meetings this weekend,
challenging globalization, the World Bank and the International Monetary
Fund and demanding that more be done for the poor.

Police arrested 49 people, charging most with public mischief or breach of
the peace; two were charged with assaulting police officers. All but four
had been released by yesterday afternoon.  Antonia Juhasz, project manager
with the San Francisco-based International Forum on Globalization, said Mr.
Wolfensohn is exaggerating World Bank progress in addressing poverty.

She said the institution still requires the world's poorest countries to cut
government spending, deregulate their economies and liberalize their trade
and financial sectors to qualify for debt relief.

"The World Bank is now focusing on pushing countries to open more to trade
and trade liberalization as a means of ending poverty, when all the evidence
suggests the process of rapid trade liberalization will, instead, increase
poverty," said Ms. Juhasz, in Ottawa on the weekend to demonstrate.

She acknowledged that the World Bank has made progress in shifting its
lending from large and often destructive infrastructure programs to social
programs, but said that trend is overwhelmed by its embrace of the
free-trade, privatization agenda.

Mr. Wolfensohn defended that approach, saying free trade -- if it means
fewer trade barriers against poor countries' goods and lower subsidies for
European and U.S. farmers -- will help developing countries compete and
prosper. Privatization is never advocated at the expense of public social
services, he added.

He said that more than ever the rich are primed to take concrete action
against poverty because the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 shocked the rich
into a deep reflection about how they work with the poor.

"We saw the two worlds coming together. All of a sudden, we found
Afghanistan in Wall Street, we found Afghanistan in the Pentagon," he said
in the interview. "It's my hope . . . we can advance the agenda, so that
developed and developing countries, rich and poor countries, can work all
together."

Terrorism thrives on poverty, he said, and the fight against terrorism is
necessarily a fight for better health, education and environmental
conditions for the poor.

He wants developed countries to double their aid for developing countries.
At the same time, he wants the developing countries to clean up corruption
within their governments and stabilize their regimes so that when the money
arrives, it will be put to good use.

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, speaking on behalf of
the IMF, said rich and poor countries are ready to strike a "new deal."

"The real issue is not whether you are for or against globalization, because
globalization is moving forward. The real issue is whether you are for or
against social justice on a global scale. And I believe there is an
increasing recognition that we have to work together to make the world and
the global economy a better place for the world's poor."

Action, however, is another question, Mr. Wolfensohn said, especially since
many finance ministers are trying to deal with a global economic slowdown
themselves.

Finance Minister Paul Martin is in a typical rich-country bind. He and Prime
Minister Jean Chrétien have said there will be increased aid in December's
budget. But their priorities are to avoid a deficit, preserve tax cuts, keep
their promises on health spending and beef up security and military
initiatives. Most of the money left over will be spent on trying to
stimulate Canada's economy.

It should be up to parliamentarians to remind governments of their
longstanding pledge to make foreign aid 0.7 per cent their gross domestic
product, the head of the IMF said this weekend. Canada's aid rate is about
0.25 per cent.

"This is money, in my view, which goes via the budget where the parliaments
can really measure their magnitude of solidarity or lack of solidarity,"
said Horst Koehler, managing director of the IMF, on calling the developed
countries "selfish" for avoiding their commitments.

 With a report by Shawn McCarthy