[stop-imf] Bank, IMF Blamed for Health Spending Cuts

[robert weissman]

Bank, IMF Blamed for Health Spending Cuts
Emad Mekay

*WASHINGTON, Dec 1 (IPS) - Watchdog development groups accused the World
Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Wednesday of doing too
little to help the global battle against HIV/AIDS, but the two
institutions responded that they are at the forefront of the struggle. *

The groups rallied outside the Washington-based headquarters of the two
organisations to protest policies they said undermine the health of
millions of people across the world.

The protest marked the world's 17th AIDS Day. This year's theme is the
disproportionate impact of the pandemic among women and girls.

The World Bank says 47 percent of people worldwide infected with the HI
virus that causes AIDS are women and girls.

In some regions women and girls outnumber men in the ranks of the
infected, according to the United Nations. In sub-Saharan Africa, close
to 60 percent of adults living with HIV are women, while in the United
States AIDS now ranks among the top causes of death for African-American
women ages 35-44.

Groups here marked the day with protests, candlelight vigils and movie
screenings on the plight of AIDS victims around the globe, and pointed a
finger of blame at the neo-liberal economic policies championed by the
World Bank and the IMF.

They blame the institutions' budget austerity measures, which borrowing
nations must accept before obtaining much needed loans, for forcing
governments to cut health spending.

Participants at the noon rally in downtown Washington also called for
cancelling in full the debts of all impoverished nations, arguing that
debt servicing also hinders those countries' abilities to spend on the
HIV/AIDS crisis.

The groups included ActionAid USA, Africa Action, the 50 Years Is Enough
Network, Global AIDS Alliance, Jubilee USA Network and the Religious
Working Group on the IMF/World Bank.

The campaigners urged the two institutions to promote alternative
strategies to address gender inequalities that leave women most
vulnerable to HIV/AIDS.

=94Women in Africa are fighting not only a virus and systemic
discrimination, but these powerful international financial institutions
that define their economic realities,=94 said Salih Booker, executive
director of Africa Action.

=94While Africa faces the worst health crisis in human history, the World
Bank and IMF continue to insist that African countries prioritise
repayments of illegitimate debts over spending on HIV/AIDS programmes.=94

Fighting HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases is one of the eight
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) established by the world's
governments and international institutions, with a deadline of 2015.

=94If the World Bank and IMF are serious about defeating this pandemic and
promoting women's rights, they must cancel the debt and end budget
austerity policies that deepen poverty and perpetuate gender
inequality,=94 said 50 Years Is Enough.

But the sister economic powerhouses say they are doing their share, in
part via the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC), which
partially reduces the debt of the world's poorest nations.

The World Bank also says it is now one of the largest long-term
investors in the prevention and mitigation of HIV/AIDS in developing
countries, and that its work spans all regions affected by the disease.

=94We are doing a lot but of course the need is great and we can do more,=
=94
said Stevan Jackson, a bank communications associate. =94It's clear that
there's more that needs to done worldwide so we are looking to scale up
our efforts.=94

The bank, he said, has committed nearly 1.8 billion dollars through
grants, loans and credits for programmes to fight HIV/AIDS =94over the
past few years.=94 It is also a founding co-sponsor of the United Nations
AIDS agency (UNAIDS) and a trustee of the Global Fund dedicated to
fighting the disease.

The bank also says its support for HIV/AIDS projects in the world's
poorest countries can be financed fully by grants, rather than via loans.

Officials from the World Bank and IMF also denied they impose budget
restrictions on health and education, but described the policies as
=94fiscal discipline=94 in order to stop waste and corruption.

=94We have no authority to impose anything on the government,=94 said Zita
Lichtenberg, a communications officer with the bank's South Asia programme.

=94The only thing that we can say is if you want to take a loan from the
World Bank, a loan which your future generations of children will have
to be repaying, our responsibility is to make sure that we are not
throwing good money after bad and that we are not just throwing money
down the hole,=94 she added.

=94Some people may get the impression that in requesting discipline before
we would give a loan it might be to some politician's sort of interest
to say something like, 'Oh the World Bank is not allowing us =E0 to spend
money on health and education', but that would be incorrect, that would
be inaccurate,=94 said Lichtenberg.

The IMF says programmes to combat HIV/AIDS are important components of
its many Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), which must be
prepared by low-income countries' governments, and approved by the fund
and bank, before nations can receive concessional loans as well as debt
relief under the HIPC plan.

In a statement Tuesday, IMF Managing Director Rodrigo de Rato said IMF
country teams have tried to take account of the epidemic's adverse
effects in giving economic policy advice.

=94More generally, the IMF and the World Bank have supported countries'
poverty reduction strategies with financial assistance and technical
advice,=94 he added.

According to UNAIDS, an estimated 37.2 million adults and 2.2 million
children worldwide are living with AIDS in 2004, the highest number ever.

More than 60 million people have been infected with the HI virus since
it was first discovered more than 20 years ago and about 15,000 new
infections occur every day. (END/2004)