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Aid, death and dogma

13 June 2005

A report released in May by UK NGO Christian Aid, documents case studies in India, Ghana and Jamaica where imposed liberalisation has ravaged local industry with devastating social impacts. The report links small-scale farmers’ spiralling debts in India with the structural adjustment programmes of the World Bank. Numerous independent reports have identified the debt crisis as the root cause of a wave of farmer suicides. In Ghana, the report details the IMF’s role in overturning rice and poultry tariffs which had been agreed by the parliament. Both industries are now teetering on the brink of total collapse.