Basic services: hands off!
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French organisations have launched a new campaign for the reform of the international financial institutions (IFIs) and equal access to basic services. The campaign denounces the structural adjustment measures which continue to be imposed by the IFIs, the lack of civil society participation and independent assessment of their policies as well as the insufficient amount of international aid devoted to basic services (water, sanitation, health, education and power).
“Basic Services: Hands Off!” is being run by Agir ici pour un monde solidaire with CRID and AITEC and supported by 26 other groups. They complain that all too often IFI policies result in the privatisation of state-owned facilities which in turn can lead to drastic price increases. The campaign asks French decision-makers to refuse to let the IFIs impose privatisation and any other measure that limits access to basic services, demand an independent assessment of the impact of these measures on the equality of access to basic services and to propose at the United Nations Conference on Financing for Development 2002 that at least 30 per cent of multilateral aid be devoted to basic services.
The second annual French parliamentary report on the IFIs