Members of staff of the Bank and Fund, board members, development and finance ministers will be travelling to Singapore this year for the annual meetings, 17 – 20 September. Once every three years, the meetings are held outside of Washington.

International Peoples Forum vs. the World Bank and IMF: Convened by a large number of IFI-monitoring organisations from around the world, the IPF will be held in Batam, Indonesia 15 – 17 September. Local police in Batam have threatened to shut down the forum after pressure from business lobbies and the Singapore government, check the Forum web site for the latest information. Workshop topics will include: a day on issues specific to Indonesia, illegitimate debt, corruption, climate change, private banks and post-conflict reconstruction.
http://www.ipf.homeip.net

IMF: Shrink it or sink it!Focus on the Global South are hosting a conference on shrinking or replacing the IMF 17 September in Singapore. The conference is going ahead despite the Singapore government refusing entry to some of the key figures from Focus on the Global South. It will be an opportunity to express resistance to the heavy-handed treatment of civil society by the Singaporean government as well as propose principles and institutions of an alternative international financial system.
http://www.focusweb.org/content/view/985/27/

Civil society dialogues with the IFIs organised by NGOs, 14 – 20 September will include: Illegal logging in Africa, public services, climate change, anti-corruption, infrastructure, women and trade, debt and many other discussion topics. Note that some events may be cancelled in the wake of the Singaporean government’s ‘blacklisting’ of nearly two dozen accredited civil society representatives.

The WB-IMF formal agenda includes:

16 Sept

G24 ministers’ meeting and G7 finance ministers’ meeting

17 Sept

International Monetary and Financial Committee: Global economy and financial markets; IMF strategic review with a focus on governance reforms

18 Sept

Development Committee: Anti-corruption framework, clean energy investment framework, middle-income countries

19 – 20 Sept

Plenary sessions

Development committee and IMFC documents: http://www.imf.org/external/am/2006/

A comprehensive calendar of events, contact information for groups in Singapore and Batam, and links to documents released by civil society are available on IFIwatchnet.
http://www.ifiwatchnet.org