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Bank fingered in Malawi famine

8 May 2002

According to Action Aid, famine in Malawi has been compounded by World Bank-guided food policies. “The World Bank has been encouraging Malawi’s government to keep foreign exchange instead of storing grain, which the bank argues could lose value. The pressure to service an outstanding bank loan prompted Malawi to sell 28,000 tonnes of stored maize to Kenya just three months before the food crisis hit.” President Bakili Muluzi confirmed that the IMF and the WB “insisted that Malawi had to sell the maize to repay the commercial banks.”

BBC article