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Bretton Woods Observer Winter 2021
A quarterly critical review of developments at the World Bank and IMF

Published by BRETTON WOODS PROJECT
Working with NGOs and researchers to monitor the World Bank and IMF

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1. Death of Doing Business Report greatly exaggerated as World Bank
announces rebranding plans
2. New IMF-Pakistan agreement likely to have adverse impact on women
3. New IMF climate strategy seeks to radically expand its climate
work – amid concerns about its approach
4. Global Day of Action against the IMF and World Bank rejects
corporate recovery agenda
5. World Bank accused of being ‘ongoing underperformer’ at COP26, as
key Bank shareholders commit to fossil-fuel finance phaseout
6. Independent Evaluation Office downplays IMF’s promotion of
austerity whilst civil society warns of further cuts
7. Alto Maipo: Harms endure due to MDBs’ lack of proper due diligence
8. Civil society frustrated by lack of substantive engagement in
IDA20 replenishment process
9. Tensions escalate between Argentina and the IMF ahead of crucial
loan repayment deadline
10. Debt crisis: What next as IMF and G20 initiatives set to expire?
11. IMF’s punishing surcharges strain Covid-19 response and recovery
efforts
12. IMF takes steps to control cryptocurrency policies
13. Will IMF policy advice align with new UNESCO Declaration on
education finance?


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KNWOLEDGE/analysis

Death of Doing Business Report greatly exaggerated as World Bank
announces rebranding plans

Summary
- World Bank Doing Business Report to be relaunched in about two
years
- Civil society concerned that changes fail to address underlying
structural issues exposed by the scandal
- Report’s relaunch illustrates institution’s unwillingness to
consider its private sector bias

On 16 September civil society organisations had occasion for
celebration, as the World Bank announced the cancellation of the
Doing Business Report (DBR, see Observer Autumn 2021). The decision
resulted from an independent investigation into allegations of data
manipulation, at the request of the Bank’s ethics committee. The
investigators’ report alleged serious ethical improprieties,
including conflict of interest within the Bank’s advisory services
and data manipulation of the Doing Business Rankings to appease China
and other important shareholders, involving the Bank’s former
President Jim Yong Kim and then World Bank CEO and current IMF
Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva.
These findings gave rise to intense discussions among World Bank and
IMF shareholders and within the media. It also brought to the fore
the degree to which the Bank and Fund are impacted by deepening
tensions between the US – and the Global North more generally – and
China. After a period of ardent speculation about the implications of
the investigation for the legitimacy of the Bank and Fund, and the
fate of Georgieva’s tenure, the IMF executive board issued a
statement affirming its support of the managing director on 11
October.
Much media coverage focused on the personal responsibility of former
Bank President Kim and Georgieva, and the allegedly strained
relations between Georgieva and current Bank President, David
Malpass. Some presented the episode as evidence of Chinese efforts to
expand its influence within international organisations.
Disappointingly, very few media outlets in the Global North – while
lamenting or warning of the inherent dangers of increased Chinese
weight at the World Bank – took time to reference the work of Eric
Toussaint of the Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt,
and other academics, who have critically documented historical US
hegemony within the multilateral system.
Recognising that the DBR scandal was just the “tip of the iceberg”
and arguing for a comprehensive response, a 12 October open letter
signed by 143 civil society organisations and individuals, called for
the Bank to urgently address the structural issues revealed by the
DBR scandal. The letter demanded reform of both institutions’
governance structures, including the gentleman’s agreement. It called
for steps to address the internal accountability deficit and
perceived conflict of interest in policy lending and technical
assistance, the ideological bias in policy advice and conditionality,
and the unwillingness of the World Bank to engage meaningfully with
the international human rights framework.
Did we say cancellation? We meant rebranding
Hopes that the World Bank and IMF would use the DBR scandal as an
opportunity to address the structural shortcomings outlined in the
CSO letter were short-lived. On 10 November Reuters reported that,
“the World Bank plans to unveil in about two years a replacement for
its flagship ‘Doing Business’ report.” The development of the new DBR
will be informed by the results of an external panel review of the
report commissioned by the World Bank’s Chief Economist Carmen
Reinhart, released on 20 September. The panel made several
recommendations that relate to long-standing civil society criticisms
of the DBR, including adopting indicators that measure the positive
functions of government in promoting a good business environment;
removing the country rankings; ending the potential conflict of
interest created by selling consulting services to governments aimed
at improving their country’s score; establishing a firewall between
the DBR unit and other Bank operations; and creating a permanent
external review board.
According to Reuters, Reinhart noted that, “key concepts for the new
product… [include] a mandate for more transparency about the
underlying methodology… and less focus on ranking countries.”
Reinhart emphasised that the Bank had instituted “a lot of
safeguards” over the past year, noting that, “the underlying nuts and
bolts will be in the public domain.” She hoped that “credibility will
follow”. Regarding credibility, a 26 October Al Jazeera article noted
that a second WilmerHale report investigating “potential wrongdoing
by current and former bank staff, including Georgieva,” will be
released in about two months to the Bank’s human resources department
and not its board.
The announcement of DBR’s rehabilitation confirmed the fears of
economic justice groups and labour unions, many of whom had
anticipated that the report would be refashioned without engaging
with the structural concerns raised by civil society. Despite the
expert panel’s sensible recommendations, the Bank has failed to
address critical questions about its undemocratic governance or the
DBR’s private sector-led development bias.
The Bank’s unwillingness to critically engage with the report’s
premise that “what is beneficial for business is good for
development”, or to assess the negative impact of DBR-driven reforms,
has long been critised (see Observer Winter 2019). Unsurprisingly,
the DBR cancellation announcement stressed, “the World Bank Group
remains firmly committed to advancing the role of the private sector
in development and providing support to governments to design the
regulatory environment that supports this.”
Doing Business remains deeply embedded in the Bank’s wider DNA
Further evidence of the Bank’s direction was seen in Malpass’s
comments during the 2021 Annual Meetings Town Hall with civil
society, where he stressed that the Bank would continue to analyse
and advise on country-level business reforms through its Systematic
Country Diagnostic. Likewise, the Bank’s 2021 Development Policy
Financing (DPF) retrospective notes, “By fostering an environment
more conducive to private sector development, DPFs play an essential
role in mobilizing private capital and supporting private sector led
growth in client countries, especially critical in a context of tight
fiscal space.”
Civil society, labour unions and social movements fear that the focus
on tightening fiscal space and related allusions to the expected
austerity wave (see Observer Winter 2021), will lead to a further
push for the privatisation of social services and development more
generally even as the global impacts of the pandemic persist.
Continued IMF-mandated austerity was strongly opposed by over 500
organisations and individuals who signed an open letter to Georgieva
in advance of the 2020 Annual Meetings (see Dispatch Annuals 2020).
DBR scandal raises doubts about the Bank’s capacity for institutional
learning and reform
The Bank’s planned revival of the DBR is consistent with a wider
trend: Rather than critically engaging with fundamental structural
criticisms about its market-solutions approach, it is merely
redeploying it under a more financialised incarnation (see Observer
Spring 2020). This was also the case with the Bank’s ‘cascade’
approach (see Observer Summer 2017), since renamed Maximizing Finance
for Development (see Observer Spring 2020), and now integrated into
the institution’s Green, Resilient and Inclusive Development (GRID)
approach (see Dispatch Annuals 2021).
The DBR and other World Bank-devised frameworks can be linked to a
phenomenon identified by Brazilian political economist Lena Lavinas
as the collaterateralisation of social policy. She observed that
“credit and debt, along with new financial devices, are becoming the
cornerstones of what used to be social protection systems.” These
erode state capacity, relegating its function to a what Bristol-based
economist Daniela Gabor calls the “de-risking state” (see Observer
Winter 2017-2018). According to Ohio State University’s Professor
Linda Labao’s 2018 article, the shrinking of the state has resulted
in the restructuring of the social contract between governments,
citizens and the private sector, which has, “led to shifts in state
capacity and policy orientation that leave populations bereft of
needed public services, increased inequality across geographic areas
and sociodemographic groups, and political effects such as the growth
of right-wing populism.”
University of Johannesburg sociologist Patrick Bond remarks, “What’s
ultimately most important is that again and again, the Bank not only
sets the stage for neoliberal coddling of corporations at policy
level, in Doing Business. Just as important is the actual practice of
the Bank and International Finance Corporation when ‘doing biz’… here
in South Africa that includes catastrophic investments such as the
Bank’s biggest-ever loan: $3.75 billion for the bribery-riddled
Medupi coal-fired power plant, as well as the Marikana platinum mine
and Net1. These have amounted to unpunished victim-filled crimes,
egged on by a mentality fostered by Doing Business: deregulatory,
profit-centric, high-carbon, extractivist and eco-catastrophic,
Ponzi-scheming and profoundly anti-poor” (see Observer Spring 2019).
The over 360 organisations, trade unions and individuals who signed a
March open letter calling on the Bank to discontinue the DBR (see
Observer Autumn 2020, Winter 2019; Update Autumn 2013) must redouble
efforts during the next two years to drive the Bank to address the
iceberg concealed by the DBR scandal. As Frederic Mousseau of US-
based Oakland Institute stressed, reflecting on the 2014 joint
statement from 280 organisations of the Our Land Our Business
Campaign, “global civil society is determined to make the Bank keep
the DBR in its grave, where it can no longer do harm.”
bit.ly/DBRScandal

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In this issue

- New IMF-Pakistan agreement likely to have adverse impact on women
by Bilquis Tahira
- Lack of public finance and debt relief at COP26 undermines
countries’ climate goals
- Alto Maipo: Harms endure due to MDBs’ lack of proper due diligence
by Juan Pablo Orrega
- Debt crisis: What next as IMF and G20 initiatives set to expire?
- IMF’s punishing surcharges strain Covid-19 response and recovery
efforts

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GENDER/analysis

New IMF-Pakistan agreement likely to have adverse impact on women
Guest analysis by Bilquis Tahira, Shirakat Partnership for
Development

Summary
- IMF and Pakistan have reached agreement for a further loan
disbursement, with Pakistan agreeing to significant cuts
- Activists warn of the potential impact of spending cuts on women
and gender inequality

Pakistan’s exceptionally long relationship with the IMF spans almost
seven decades, with 23 loan programmes valued at $38 billion. Despite
this long tenure and Pakistan following the IMF’s expert guidance and
macroeconomic principles, the programmes’ stated objectives of
boosting economic growth, reducing poverty, facilitating structural
reform, or containing a domestic economic crisis are still far from
being achieved.
The current 39-month, $6 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF)
arrangement, which began in 2019, was suspended in January 2020
because Pakistan resisted IMF recommendations to increase electricity
prices and impose additional taxes (see Observer Winter 2020). In
March, the IMF board completed the combined second through fifth
reviews of the EFF and approved a disbursement of about $500 million,
bringing the issued credit to $2 billion. However, renegotiations for
further disbursal reportedly failed over disagreement on VAT reforms
and Central Bank autonomy. On 21 November, an agreement was finally
reached for the disbursal of a further $1 billion, with Pakistan
bowing to IMF pressure by agreeing to significant cuts in expenditure
over the coming months.
Like previous loans, the current arrangement follows the neoliberal
agenda of the IMF. The IMF-imposed conditionalities include a broad
range of fiscal consolidation measures, based on privatisation,
deregulation, curtailing subsidies, limiting social sector spending,
as well as tax reforms. In March, the Government agreed to several
fiscal consolidation measures including increasing electricity prices
and improving regulation of the power sector; imposing PKR 140
billion (USD 791 million) in additional taxes and reform of corporate
taxation; Central Bank autonomy (see Observer Summer 2021); and
better management and privatisation of state-owned enterprises (SOE).
Conditionalities severely impact vulnerable people, particularly
women
Following the IMF’s agenda in the context of other challenges such as
Covid-19, natural disasters, crop failures, climatic effects in the
cotton sector, and food and rural inflation, has had visible impact
on the disadvantaged population in Pakistan. Poverty has risen from
31.3 per cent in 2018 to 39.3 per cent in 2020-21 per World Bank
estimates, with over two million people falling below the poverty
line in 2020 alone. Similarly, all essential household consumption
items have seen an upward trend in prices, placing the burden on the
poor again and particularly on women. For example, the price of wheat
flour has increased by 39 per cent; petrol by 79 per cent; LPG
cylinders – used for cooking and heating – by 92 per cent; and
charcoal by 14-28 per cent. This means women spend more time
collecting firewood and more income on household essentials.
The situation for women has become further untenable. Pakistan
already lags on global gender equality: It ranks third to last in the
latest Global Gender Gap Index (2021). Economic participation and
opportunity, educational attainment, and health and survival of women
and girls are a matter of serious concern. Gender based violence is
on the rise, and convictions are rare. Female labour force
participation is one of the lowest in South Asia at 22 per cent.
Approximately 70 per cent of women are in the informal sector without
any social protection. Less than 2 per cent of adult women own a
house or land, and women receive only 19 per cent of enterprise
financing. Only 11 per cent of women have bank accounts, compared
with 21 per cent of men. Representation of women in formal small and
medium enterprises is low – only 6 per cent of firms are women-owned.
IMF policies exacerbate gender inequality in a time of global crisis
The neoliberal conditionalities imposed by the IMF – and enforced by
the Government for lack of choice – exacerbate gender-based
discrimination. Shirakat recently conducted 20 focus group
discussions with 118 women in low-income areas of Islamabad and
Rawalpindi. The women shared that due to the price hike in coal and
gas, they must walk long distances to collect firewood. Access to
healthcare has become limited, as the petrol price increase has made
public transport costs prohibitive. Steep rises in electricity bills
have made using light at night difficult, so most of the paid and
unpaid work must be done during daylight. Girls are being taken out
of school to manage household chores. Even with a rise in the minimum
wages, the cost of living has become unmanageable due to inflation.
Violence within the households has reportedly increased as the whole
family faces the pressure of making ends meet.
On 18 November parliamentarians passed the Privatisation Commission
(Amendment Bill, 2021) and the SBP (State Bank of Pakistan) Banking
Services Corporation (Amendment) Bill 2021 in a joint session of the
Parliament. The impact of the Bills will be seen as their
implementation rolls out. In the light of the multiple crises faced
by Pakistan, the severity of conditionalities imposed on it is highly
inappropriate, and it is high time the IMF rethink its neoliberal
approach to prevent its policies from further hurting the most
vulnerable.
bit.ly/PakistanIMF

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ENVIRONMENT/analysis

Lack of public finance and debt relief at COP26 undermines countries’
climate goals

Summary
- Rich countries fail to meet $100 billion per year climate finance
goal – including finance disbursed via MDBs
- Climate-for-debt swaps mechanism proposed by IMF fails to
materialise, as debt crisis hampers developing countries’ ability to
finance climate plans
- Climate conditionality looms for new IMF Resilience and
Sustainability Trust, as critics warn of green ‘shock therapy’
policies on horizon

At the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) 26th
Conference of Parties (COP26) in Glasgow in November, the public
finance urgently needed to fund climate action remained lacking – a
situation compounded by debt distress affecting many low- and middle-
income countries (see Observer Winter 2020).
Furthermore, critics have warned the World Bank and IMF’s proposed
solutions to the climate crisis – including crowding in the private
sector, carbon pricing and continued austerity – risk further
undermining governments’ capacity to address the crisis.
At COP26, wealthy countries failed to meet a 2009 pledge to mobilise
$100 billion per year in climate finance by 2020, including through
the World Bank and other multilateral development banks (MDBs), with
a new roadmap released by the UK’s COP26 presidency suggesting the
goal would not be met until 2023.
“The whole framework of [the] Paris [Agreement]… is potentially
fundamentally flawed in being based around national pledges…without
any financing plan,” Avinash Persaud, an advisor to Barbados Prime
Minister Mia Mottley, told online news outlet Climate Home in
November. “We have a $50 trillion scale of a problem and we’re using
a village hall budget to try and address it. That’s not going to
work.”
Debt relief to facilitate climate action nowhere in sight
The lack of available climate finance is being exacerbated by ongoing
debt crises in many countries, which are often aggravated by climate
impacts.
New research by UK-based civil society organisation (CSO) Jubilee
Debt Campaign found that 34 low-income countries spent five times
more on debt repayments than on climate action over the past five
years – one illustration of the opportunity cost of debt burdens.
Civil society advocates have raised concerns that climate finance
flows themselves are increasing debt burdens: According to Oxfam, in
2017-2018 just $12.5 billion of the $59.5 billion in climate finance
provided by rich countries was in grants – compared with $24.5
billion in non-concessional loans.
In April, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva announced that
the Fund would work with the World Bank to establish a climate-for-
debt swaps mechanism to be launched at COP26 to ameliorate this
problem. However, Reuters reported in late October that the IMF had
“dropped plans to release a joint proposal with the World Bank,” and
was “narrowing its push for debt-for-climate swaps to focus on
countries without major debt issues.” This coincided with the G20’s
failure to address the broader debt crisis at its leaders’ summit in
Rome in October (see Observer Winter 2021).
With a lack of leadership from the Bank, Fund, and G20, it was left
to others to raise the issue. In late October, the Vulnerable Group
of
Twenty (V20) – a bloc of 48 countries – called for a debt
restructuring option for climate vulnerable countries to be created.
In a statement released during COP26, 243 CSOs – including Focus on
the Global South and Third World Network – called for debt
cancellation in recognition of the larger “climate debt” owed by the
Global North to the Global South. This was echoed by 43 UK Members of
Parliament in a cross-party letter sent to UK Secretary of State for
the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, Liz Truss, during
COP26, which demanded the UK support, “efforts to write off debt for
countries in the global South and allow them to prioritise their
response to climate breakdown.”
Critics warn of green ‘shock therapy’ embedded in the marketisation
of climate action
With rich countries unwilling to mobilise public finance at the scale
required to address the climate crisis, critics are wary of what
comes next. Discussions about crowding private investors into climate
action dominated the World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings in October
(see Dispatch Annuals 2021) and this continued at COP26, despite the
yawning disconnect between the private sector’s thirst for profits
and the growing need for debt relief,
grants and highly-concessional forms of climate finance.
Writing in the Financial Times, Professors Daniela Gabor of UWE
Bristol and Isabella Weber of University of Massachusetts Amherst
warned that the IMF’s fledgling approach to climate (see Observer
Autumn 2021) could play a damaging role in this regard. Of a new IMF
climate strategy published in July, they noted, “In 42 pages, it
mentions carbon pricing 23 times, green industrial policy once, and
green public investments never.” They argued this approach – embodied
by, inter alia, the IMF’s proposal for an international carbon
pricing floor among large emitters – is reminiscent of the shock
therapy delivered by the Fund in post-Soviet economies in the 1990s,
when private investors enjoyed the spoils, often with devastating
social and environmental consequences. “The price narrative sounds
eerily familiar: carbon price hikes will allocate resources, real and
financial, towards the right sectors,” they wrote. “Macro austerity
may not be in the speech, but it is on the menu: after nearly two
years of pandemic-related monetary and fiscal expansion, we are back
to calls for shrinking the public purse.”
Climate-related conditionality from the IMF may form part of this
agenda. Georgieva noted at COP26 that the IMF’s new Resilience and
Sustainability Trust (RST) will, “provide long-term financing on
concessional terms to vulnerable countries…so they can have the
financial resources necessary to be strong in the face of climate
shocks to come.” The RST will be financed by ‘re-channelling’ IMF
Special Drawing Rights from wealthy countries (see Observer Autumn
2021; Inside the Institutions, What are Special Drawing Rights?),
with Georgieva telling the Paris Peace Forum on 11 November that the
aim, “is to start with about $30 billion, building it up to $50
billion and beyond.” These figures dwarf the resources available to
the UNFCCC-based Green Climate Fund (see Observer Spring 2019),
although it remains unclear how much RST finance will be climate-
related.
The UK Executive Director to the IMF, Shona Riach, confirmed at an
event on 18 November that although the RST’s design is still being
discussed, it will almost certainly disburse low-interest loans
(rather than grants) and is likely to require conditionality to
access finance (see Dispatch Annuals 2021).
Against this backdrop, civil society will push for the Bank and
Fund’s climate work to be aligned with economic and climate justice
imperatives.
bit.ly/COP26FinanceGoals

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SOCIAL SERVICES/news

Global Day of Action against the IMF and World Bank rejects corporate
recovery agenda

Sixty civil society groups from 24 countries joined forces on 15
October for a Global Day of Action Against the IMF and World Bank
during the 2021 World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings (see Dispatch
Annuals 2021). They protested the Bretton Woods Institutions’ (BWIs)
recovery agenda over concerns of greenwashing and corporate capture
through, inter alia, the World Bank’s Green, Resilient, and Inclusive
Development (GRID) framework.
Co-organiser IBON International, a global civil society network
working on democracy and development, wrote that, “GRID travels the
same path of Public-Private Partnerships, the discontinued Doing
Business Reports, and of the Maximizing Finance for Development—all
champion the corporate capture of development” (see Observer Winter
2021, Spring 2020, Summer 2019; Briefing The World Bank’s
Privatization Push). In the same article, Beverly Longid, coordinator
of the Indigenous Peoples Movement for Self-Determination and
Liberation (IPMSDL), called for “systemic changes for people-centered
development.” The event also raised concerns around the growing debt
burden in developing countries (see Observer Winter 2021), loan
conditionalities, the climate emergency, and the Bank’s opposition to
the intellectual property waiver for Covid-19 vaccines (see Observer
Spring 2021). IBON condemned “the IMF-WBG’s continued promotion of
corporate monopolization of vaccines and technologies.”
The accompanying Global Day of Action statement called out the BWIs’
continued bolstering of a “neoliberal regime” that entrenches
exploitation, inequality, and dispossession in favour of
multinational corporations and their profits. It further highlighted
how loan conditionalities place undue burden on Global South
countries struggling with the pandemic, forcing them to prioritise
debt payments and continued extractive investments over national
development priorities and health spending (see Dispatch Springs
2021).
Instead, IBON and fellow organisers called for debt cancellation, a
freely available people’s vaccine, and an end to “the policy regime
of privatization, deregulation, liberalization, and
denationalization.” Participants stressed that a people-centred and
transformative development agenda must include “democratic ownership
of current and future economic trajectories,” and continued global
solidarity with workers’, women’s, indigenous and poor people’s
movements.
bit.ly/IBONStatement

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ENVIRONMENT/news

World Bank accused of being ‘ongoing underperformer’ at COP26, as key
Bank shareholders commit to fossil-fuel finance phaseout

Summary
- UN official and civil society criticise World Bank and other MDBs
for lack of ambition at COP26
- Countries representing 45 per cent of IBRD voting shares sign COP26
declaration pledging to end public finance for fossil fuels by end of
2022

While the World Bank failed to take concrete action to introduce new
restrictions on its support for fossil fuels in its Climate Change
Action Plan for 2021-25 published in June (see Observer Summer 2021),
a number of the Bank’s key shareholders have signalled their intent
to push for further progress at the Bank and other multilateral
development banks (MDBs) in 2022.
Thirty-nine countries and finance institutions signed on to a
statement on International Support for the Clean Energy Transition at
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s 26th
Conference of Parties (COP26) in Glasgow in November. The statement
notes, “we will end new direct public support for the international
unabated fossil fuel energy sector by the end of 2022, except in
limited and clearly defined circumstances that are consistent with a
1.5°C warming limit and the goals of the Paris Agreement.” The
commitment applies to the bilateral finance provided by signatory
governments, and “will also guide [their] approach on the boards of
multilateral development banks.”
Although the World Bank itself failed to sign on to the statement, a
number of its large shareholders, including the US, Germany, France,
the UK, Canada and Italy, did – as well as a range of borrower
countries including Sri Lanka, Zambia, Mali and others. All told,
signatories account for 45 per cent of the voting shares of the
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the
Bank’s middle-income country lending arm – meaning that a significant
proportion of World Bank shareholders now support ending public
finance for fossil fuels, baring exceptional circumstances.
World Bank becomes poster child for MDBs’ climate inaction at COP26
The clean energy transition statement followed a disappointing joint
MDBs ‘ambition statement’ that was quietly released at the start of
COP26 on 1 November – and largely consisted of the multilaterals
merely outlining previously-announced commitments. In the lead-up to
the statement’s release, Nick Mabey, the CEO of UK-based think tank
E3G, questioned whether World Bank President David Malpass was
directly responsible for watering it down, noting the, “[w]ord on the
street is Malpass is personally blocking more advanced MDB positions
on climate” at COP26.
In a civil society reaction to the MDBs statement, published on 2
November, Bronwen Tucker of global civil society organisation Oil
Change International commented, “While their Paris Alignment
commitment was promising in 2017, after years of stalling the MDBs
are now standing in the way of the Paris Agreement rather than
aligning with it. They can change this by joining other countries and
institutions in ending all fossil fuel finance, greatly increasing
support for community-led energy access and just transition, and re-
focusing their climate finance to serve the most vulnerable
communities rather than private sector profits.”
Frustration with the MDBs’ failure to provide much semblance of
united ambition at COP26 was further voiced by Selwin Hart, Special
Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on Climate Action, who told the
Financial Times on 4 November that multilateral development banks
could not “continue to fiddle while the developing world burns,”
adding, “I’m compelled to single out the World Bank as an ongoing
underperformer.” Hart’s comments garnered considerable reaction, and
apparently resulted in a call between Malpass and UN Secretary-
General Antonio Guterres on 6 November. Still, as long as a Donald
Trump-nominee with a history of climate scepticism is at its helm,
it’s difficult to imagine the Bank being anything but a climate
laggard.
bit.ly/COP26FossilFuels


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IFI GOVERNANCE/news

Independent Evaluation Office downplays IMF’s promotion of austerity
whilst civil society warns of further cuts

Summary
- New IEO report criticises impact of IMF-imposed cuts but does not
consider austerity recommendations excessive
- Civil society highlights impact of austerity on inequality and
sounds alarm on impending wave of cuts

In September, the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) of the IMF
published its evaluation Growth and Adjustment in IMF-Supported
Programs. In the report, the IEO, whose role is to conduct
evaluations of issues relevant to the Fund, assessed the extent to
which IMF programmes from 2008 to 2019 have supported growth in
countries, and considered if the IMF had been heavy-handed in
prescribing austerity policies. Portions of the report presented
damning conclusions.
The IMF lends through two systems: the General Reserve Account (GRA),
which provides non-concessional loans to IMF members, and the Poverty
Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT), which provides concessional loans
for low-income countries. The IEO wrote that, “GRA programs relied
heavily on spending cuts to achieve adjustment; efforts to protect
low-income and vulnerable groups often fell short of their goals;
health and education spending did not increase significantly in
either PRGT or GRA programs.” But despite such assessments, the IEO
ultimately concluded that it “does not find evidence of a consistent
bias towards excessive austerity”, because it considered the
austerity measures imposed to not have had negative effects on
growth.
The IEO report made three recommendations: (1) attention to growth
implications of IMF programmes should become more thorough,
systematic, and sensitive to social and distributional consequences;
(2) programmes should pay greater attention to supporting growth-
oriented structural reforms; and (3) the Fund should build toolkits
to analyse the adjustment-growth relationship.
In her formal response, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva
stated that she supported the second and third recommendations but
downplayed the attention the IMF should give to growth and social-
distributional impacts of its loans, arguing that “growth cannot be
placed above or on par with the core objective of Fund lending of
helping members resolve their balance of payments problems.” She
further questioned the ability of the Fund to monitor social and
distributional consequences, due to “possible budgetary implications”
for the institution.
Excessive austerity past and future
In a meeting between the IEO, civil society organisations (CSOs) and
academia, hosted by the Bretton Woods Project, it became clear that
this ambivalent take on austerity was not shared by the economic
justice community, who consistently emphasised that whether austerity
is “excessive” or not does not just depend on its effect on growth.
Rebecca Ray of Boston University presented research showing that IMF-
imposed austerity exacerbates inequality, concluding that “even if
growth outcomes are beginning to improve, it is not being reflected
in living standards and wellbeing.”
Civil society and academics are raising serious concerns that the
pandemic will result in a wave of IMF-promoted austerity across low-
and middle-income countries. A paper from Isabel Ortiz and Matthew
Cummins earlier this year warned of a
“post-pandemic fiscal austerity shock… far more premature and severe
than the one that followed the global financial crisis,” and called
on the IMF to “stop taking decisions that affect the lives of
millions of people without adequate consultation.” In October 2020,
Oxfam showed that 84 per cent of IMF loans during the pandemic
“encourage, and in some cases require, poor countries hard hit by the
economic fallout from the pandemic to adopt more tough austerity
measures in the aftermath of the health crisis.” These assessments
led over 500 CSOs and academics to publish a letter calling on the
IMF to stop promoting austerity.
Such warnings appear to have fallen on deaf ears. In its Regional
Economic Outlook for sub-Saharan Africa in October, the IMF argued
that, “Despite the spending needs associated with the pandemic, most
countries will nonetheless need to undertake fiscal consolidation to
contain rising debt vulnerabilities.” In November, the IMF stated its
support for ambitions of the Government of Jamaica to reduce debt
from 109 to 60 per cent of GDP by 2027-28, to improve “investor
confidence and preservation of macroeconomic stability.”
bit.ly/IEOReport2021

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ACCOUNTABILITY/analysis

Alto Maipo: Harms endure due to MDBs’ lack of proper due diligence
Guest comment by Juan Pablo Orrega, Ecosistemas

Summary
- Alto Maipo project continues to cause harm to communities and
environment
- World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank failed in their due
diligence
- Independent accountability mechanisms cannot provide remedy for
harms caused and cannot substitute for adequate due diligence

In 2008, the Chilean environmental authority accepted into its
evaluation pipeline a farfetched 531 MW hydroelectric project, Alto
Maipo (AM), proposed by subsidiaries of the North American company,
AES Corp. The environmental impact assessment (EIA) was one of the
most deficient and incomplete we have seen in decades of
environmental defense work.
The ‘run-of-the-river’ project deploys installations in the
headwaters of the three main sub-basins – Colorado, Yeso and Volcán –
of the Maipo River watershed, to capture the waters of these
tributaries, conducting them through a 75 km network of tunnels to
two underground power-houses.
The international precautionary principle and the preventive
principle of Chile’s environmental legislation were ignored. We find
it impossible understand that the government authorised a project
that degrades the headwaters of the Maipo River, putting at risk the
hydrological cycle in the whole watershed, considering that it
supplies drinking water to 8 million people and irrigation to 136,000
hectares, and that the region is desertifying.
An opposition campaign started as soon as AM was announced (see
Observer Autumn 2013). AM’s proponents claim that the opposers cannot
demonstrate that AM puts at risk the water supply to Chile’s
Metropolitan Region. Neither can AES prove the contrary. Thus, the
need to apply the precautionary and preventive principles.
International financial institutions (IFIs) bear responsibility for
funding flawed project
Curiously, and despite calls against its involvement, the World
Bank’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation
(IFC), approved a $150 million loan for the project in October 2013.
IFC joined the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and US’s State
Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC, now the International
Development Corporation), which provided $200 million and $250
million loans respectively. Ultimately, the IFC and the German bank
KfW divested from the project, transferring their stakes to
commercial banks.
In 2017, Ecosistemas, the Coordinadora No Alto Maipo, and other
inhabitants of the basin, with the support of the US-based Center for
International Environmental Law, presented complaints before the
grievance mechanisms of IDB and IFC – the Independent Consultation
and Investigation Mechanism (MICI) and Compliance Advisor Omnbudsman
(CAO) respectively. Their belated responses were useless from the
point of view of those affected by AM.
Apart from being dominated by management’s bias towards projects
already approved by them, the MDBs’ complaints mechanisms are
“reactive”: They accept complaints once the harms or impacts have
begun occurring (see Observer Summer 2017). Both CAO and MICI took
4.5 years to produce their reports, while AM was being constructed at
a feverish pace. This is unacceptable.
Affected communities and the environment urgently need proactive
institutions which can prevent damage and ensure that projects
considered for financing are sound. They should seek to ‘prevent
rather than cure’.
Alto Maipo’s disastrous impact evidences lack of due diligence
In this sense, IFC management’s response to the CAO’s report is
symptomatic. A huge mistake, from our point of view, since they
affirm that their ‘due diligence’ prior to the approval of the credit
was flawless, and repeatedly mention “experts” who were hired (at
high costs, no doubt), for this purpose. If this were the case, how
does one explain the litany of grave, unanticipated problems faced by
the project from day one?
AM has suffered worker strikes, acute conflicts with contractors
(including the renouncement of a main European contractor which sued
AM in international courts), and a critical period of technical
default. It has been the subject of constant financial restructuring
and numerous legal and administrative demands. AM projected a selling
price of electricity of $120 per MW/h; today the price is at less
than $50 per MW/h.
The declared estimated project cost has more than tripled from $700
million to $2.5 billion and the construction time more than doubled,
from 5 to 12 years. AM is already costing the equivalent of five
natural gas combined-cycle thermal plants, with less capacity than
one of them.
The influx of workers to the region has also had serious
consequences. AM declared it would employ 2,050 workers, but the
number has reached 5,500. MICI recognised that there was no gender
perspective evaluation of the impact of this mostly male workforce
invading the countryside. According to AM’s authorisation, workers
were supposed to stay at contained camps, but instead they dispersed
throughout local towns and villages.
Water from fractured aquifers, mixed with sediments, poured out of
the tunnels under construction, contaminating water courses. This
occurred despite technical arguments in the EIA that this wasn’t
going to happen.The EIA and IFIs due diligence also failed to
consider AM’s impacts on ‘recreational, touristic and landscape
uses’, this being the area’s main economic asset today. This was also
recognised by MICI in their report.
Despite concerns voiced by opponents from the beginning, the impacts
of climate change on the viability of the project were not
considered. Climate change is affecting Chile acutely. Glaciers are
disappearing, and river flows have been diminishing for decades.
Now AM is seeking Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Proceeding protection in the
US, declaring a debt of $2 billion, while blaming changes in Chile’s
electricity market and the impact of climate change on glaciers and
river flows that will diminish AM’s generation capacity.
A radical shift is required for the World Bank and other IFIs to meet
their development mandates. Rather than relying on weak
accountability mechanisms, they must develop robust due diligence
processes that ensure that harms, such as those currently being
suffered by the communities and ecosystems in the Maipo River
watershed, do not occur in the first place.
bit.ly/AltoMaipoMDBs

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FINANCE/news

Civil society frustrated by lack of substantive engagement in IDA20
replenishment process

The current replenishment of the International Development
Association (IDA), the World Bank’s low-income lending arm, will be
essential to the Bank’s support for pandemic response in low-income
countries. Civil society has provided substantive recommendations for
the replenishment, including through an 6 October joint statement by
Belgium-based Eurodad, Zimbabwe-based Afrodad and the Bretton Woods
Project. Trade unions, Oxfam and others have also made
recommendations, including on civil society engagement (see Observer
Summer 2021).
On 13 November the World Bank released the draft Deputies Report for
IDA’s 20th replenishment process (IDA20), and invited public comments
by 26 November. The finalised report will be tabled for endorsement
at the IDA20’s last meeting, scheduled to take place in Tokyo on
December 14th and 15th.
Civil society expressed their frustration that despite substantive
suggestions, few of their proposals were integrated into the IDA20
Deputies Report. Examples abound: no IDA20 commitment to universal
social care, a decreased focus on inequality, the unwillingness to
ensure the Bank does not support the privatisation of essential
health and education services, and the potential increase in the size
of the controversial Private Sector Window (see Observer Autumn
2021).
The frustration has been made explicit in a forthcoming CSO statement
which stresses that the adoption of some civil society language in
the absence of supporting transformative policies is insufficient to
legitimise the consultation process. Nadia Daar of Oxfam
International, stressed, “Opening the formal comment period when most
things are already baked is rather meaningless. It is essential that
civil society – both in donor and IDA recipient countries – are able
to feed in meaningfully to the process” (see Observer Autumn 2019).
bit.ly/IDA20PSW

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FINANCE/news

Tensions escalate between Argentina and the IMF ahead of crucial loan
repayment deadline

Negotiations between the IMF and Argentina have entered a crucial
phase as the Argentine government called for flexibility ahead of a
$2.8 billion repayment in March 2022, part of a total of $19 billion
it owes to the Fund next year. Former President Mauricio Macri agreed
a $57 billion arrangement with the IMF in 2018, the largest in the
Fund’s history (see Observer Autumn 2019).
The negotiation road blocks are surcharges (see Observer Winter
2021), the length of repayment period and the pace of proposed
spending cuts. To placate tensions, Argentina is seeking the IMF’s
blessing for a new national economic strategy before it takes the
plan to the opposition-held Senate in December. According to
government sources, Argentina is hopeful of IMF approval if it
presents strategies to improve tax administration and to seek
financing from other lenders, such as the World Bank. However, the
Fund will likely expect substantial cuts in public spending, which
the government opposes.
Adrian Falco and Lionel Stiglitz of Argentina-based organisation
Fundación SES, state that, “Argentina cannot pay its debt to the IMF
in 2022. In fact, the budget sent to the Senate [in September 2021]
lays out that it will not be possible to develop essential public
policies if Argentina must spend 4 per cent of GDP on IMF payments.”
They added that the IMF “must think about the needs of a country
whose macroeconomic crisis they are partially responsible for.”
Voices such as the Financial Times have echoed criticisms about the
“controversial” IMF loan, noting that “concerns about making such a
large loan to a country that had already been bailed out 21 times in
six decades by the fund were waved aside.”
bit.ly/ArgentinaLoanRepay

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FINANCE/news

Debt crisis: What next as IMF and G20 initiatives set to expire?

Summary
- G20 Common Framework for Debt Treatments set to be only
multilateral mechanism for debt relief left in 2022
- Private creditors’ participation in debt relief has thus far been
negligible

The coming months will see the end of two of the main multilateral
mechanisms for debt relief: The G20’s Debt Service Suspension
Initiative (DSSI), which expires in December 2021, and the IMF’s
Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust (CCRT), set to expire on 10
January 2022 – although the IMF will consider its possible extension
for “a final tranche of debt relief” until 13 April 2022, “subject to
the availability of sufficient resources in the CCRT.”
The DSSI and CCRT serve to support countries with debt repayment
issues in different ways. The DSSI suspends debt payment on bilateral
public debt to G20 countries. Countries get a pause on their debt
payments, but still owe the same amount which they will have to pay
later. The CCRT provides countries with grants to help them make debt
payments to the IMF specifically.
The DSSI, established in April 2020, has been criticised for falling
short of expectations. An October study by UK-based civil society
organisation (CSO) Jubilee Debt Campaign (JDC) found that only a
quarter of the $35 billion of debt suspension announced by the G20
was delivered. Meanwhile, private lenders were paid $14.9 billion,
while suspending only 0.2 per cent of payments.
The CCRT provided $850.7 million in debt service relief to 29
eligible countries in four tranches, according to the IMF’s
last update, leaving out most of Latin America where only Haiti
received such relief. Nadia Daar of Oxfam International said that the
CCRT “was pretty much the only mechanism which effectively
‘cancelled’ some debt payments for some countries. However, it was
very limited in size and scope…and ultimately, the IMF also
benefitted from this scheme as CCRT grants can only be used to pay
back the IMF.”
G20 turns to deeply flawed Common Framework
The forthcoming termination of the DSSI and the CCRT means that there
will only be one active multilateral mechanism for debt support,
the G20 Common Framework for Debt Treatments (see Dispatch Annuals
2020). On paper, this framework was created to deal with the more
complex issue of restructuring and reducing debt burdens. However, an
article by the Atlantic Council, a US-based think tank, has called it
an “abject failure”, highlighting that, “Three countries—Chad,
Ethiopia, and Zambia—have sought debt relief through the program, but
little progress has been made.” In most cases creditors were merely
encouraged to change payment terms, which JDC highlighted was,
“similar to the current suspension scheme,” adding, “It mainly kicks
the can down the road, creating a future debt problem” (see Observer
Winter 2020). A recent study by UNDP identified 72 countries with a
high
degree of debt vulnerability, of which 23, holding about 65 per cent
of the total debt service at risk, are not eligible for the Common
Framework or the DSSI.
Acknowledging some of these concerns, in a recent blog, IMF Managing
Director Kristalina Georgieva and Director of the Strategy, Policy,
and Review Department Ceyla Pazarbasioglu, stated, “With policy space
tightening for highly indebted countries, the [Common Framework] can
and must deliver more quickly,” adding that “It is also critical that
private sector creditors implement debt relief on comparable terms.”
The role of private creditors will be extremely important in
resolving the crises. CSOs are demanding they “cancel the debt for
low- and middle-income countries that request it to help them respond
and recover from the pandemic, and to play full part in international
processes, including the G20’s Common Framework, granting requests
for debt relief through this process” (see Dispatch Annuals 2021).
Daar highlighted, “The situation is extremely dire with the pandemic
continuing to rage and persistent vaccine inequity. Countries facing
economic hardship will resume debt payments to bilateral creditors in
2022 and continue to pay back private creditors who have escaped from
any responsibility and will likely be forced into severe austerity in
the coming years.”
bit.ly/DebtCrisis2022

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FINANCE/news

IMF’s punishing surcharges strain Covid-19 response and recovery
efforts

Summary
- Civil society and economists call for IMF to abolish unethical and
harmful surcharges on countries in debt distress
- Surcharges draining urgently needed funds for Covid-19 recovery in
sixteen countries

With a $2.8 billion payment deadline looming in March 2022, the
fraught relationship between the IMF and Argentina has been thrust
into the spotlight again, as reported by the Financial Times (see
Observer Winter 2021). One of the core issues of disagreement are
surcharges – additional interest rates the IMF has been charging
since 1997 for loan programmes that exceed a certain size or
repayment term length. A recent paper from the Center for Economic
and Policy Research (CEPR) called them “unethical” and “opaque”,
estimating that Argentina’s surchage payments alone add up to $3.3
billion over 2018-2023. A brand-new data tool and guide from Belgium-
based civil society organisation (CSO) Eurodad estimates that
surcharges increase borrowing costs by 64 per cent in affected
countries, calling them “unconscionable”.
Since 2016, level-based surcharges add 2 per cent to interest rates
on outstanding credit above 187.5 per cent of each country’s assigned
IMF quota, while time-based surcharges add 1 per cent on credit
outstanding for 51 months. This means surcharges are levied on
countries that are most heavily and protractedly indebted. In theory,
they are meant to disincentivise countries from borrowing beyond
their allotted IMF quotas and to encourage them to repay loans early,
while helping the Fund build up “precautionary balances”. However,
the CEPR paper highlights that governments already have many other
incentives to avoid turning to the IMF: the associated stigma and
negative signalling to financial markets, loss of sovereignty and
potential welfare impacts through conditionalities, as well as
protests from civil society and their electorates.
According to an October briefing from Boston University’s Global
Development Policy Center (GDP Center), surcharges primarily
represent penalty fees to bolster the IMF’s cash flows, with middle-
income countries (MICs) – lacking appropriate representation in the
Fund’s undemocratic governance structure – subsidising the IMF’s
operational costs. Surcharges work pro-cyclically and erode debt
sustainability by draining government funds when they are most
needed, increasing default probability and undermining the Fund’s own
mandate to ensure financial stability (see Dispatch Annuals 2021).
This seems particularly inappropriate given the unprecedented
economic collapse triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic, which the IMF
itself has called “a crisis like no other”, when many MICs find
themselves in unforeseen debt distress and urgently need fiscal space
for their pandemic responses. CEPR calculated that Argentina could
vaccinate its entire population nine times over with its surcharge
payments, Egypt twice and Ecuador seven times.
Economists, civil society, and UN experts unite in calls to abolish
surcharges
While Argentina’s current plight is receiving most press attention,
surcharges affect some 16 countries and make up a third of the Fund’s
operational revenues. Egypt is expected to pay $1.8 billion through
2026, and Ecuador around $1 billion by 2029. Many countries are
unaware they are paying these fees, as data are not transparently
published. Eurodad’s December guide presents surcharges data for 14
countries for the first time.
“These policies are completely contradictory and undermine the IMF’s
own efforts around
the COVID recovery,” stressed Shereen Talaat
of CSO Arab Watch Coalition, concerned about strained Middle Eastern
economies. “What we expect in this moment of global crisis is debt
relief and reform to ease the burden on middle-income countries – not
additional charges.”
Calls by CSOs, governments and experts to abolish surcharges have so
far gone unheard. In an open letter in May, current and former UN
Independent Experts along with CSOs pointed out that surcharges
violate international human rights law, as their “main impact is to
punish poor countries” (see Observer Summer 2021). The G24 communiqué
at this year’s Annual Meetings urged the Fund to “correct the
regressive and procyclical character of the Surcharge Policy” (see
Dispatch Annuals 2021). In the GDP Center briefing, Joseph Stiglitz
and Kevin Gallagher emphasised that, “the IMF should not be in the
business of making a profit off of countries in dire straits,” and
suggested the Fund should instead be conceptualised as a
“cooperative” where operating costs are shouldered by countries
faring relatively better. Daniel Munevar of Eurodad argued, “this
system of punitive fees must be immediately suspended and eventually
eliminated.”
bit.ly/Surcharges2021

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FINANCE/news

IMF takes steps to control cryptocurrency policies

The IMF, no stranger to criticism, is encountering new adversaries:
cryptocurrency advocates. In its recent Global Financial Stability
Report (GFSR), published in October, the IMF cited cryptocurrencies
as one of the three major challenges to global financial stability
(along with Covid-19 and climate change), proposing a host of
policies to mitigate the threat. IMF blogs in October and July also
emphasised the institution’s cryptocurrency concerns.
El Salvador made headlines earlier this year when it became the first
country to adopt Bitcoin as national currency. In response, the IMF
warned that “given Bitcoin’s high price volatility, its use as a
legal tender entails significant risk to consumer protection,
financial integrity, and financial stability.”
Cryptocurrency advocates, including the Human Rights Foundation, see
the technology as a tool with the potential to decentralise power
away from global financial centres and corrupt governments, and some
have opposed the IMF’s calls for control. An article published by
Nasdaq in October argued that, “The IMF hates Bitcoin because its
decentralized protocol and programmatic monetary policy defies the
control the fund wants to implement.”
Whether the Fund’s critics are right or wrong, cryptocurrencies will
be a space of increasing IMF intervention in national economies over
the coming years. Experts have argued, for example, that El
Salvador’s approach to cryptocurrencies could affect its
possibilities of securing an IMF loan. There are also concerns that
IMF interventions in cryptocurrencies will be used to promote its
traditional policies. In the GFSR, for example, the IMF warned that
to avoid “cryptoization” of economies, countries must “strengthen
monetary policy credibility, safeguard the independence of central
banks, and maintain a sound fiscal position.”
bit.ly/CryptoSalvador

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CONDITIONALITY/news

Will IMF policy advice align with new UNESCO Declaration on education
finance?

A new UNESCO declaration agreed in November called on countries to,
“Raise more revenues to increase education budgets, in particular via
measures that strengthen the design and the equity of the tax
system.” It also pushed governments to implement previous commitments
to “allocate at least 4-6% of GDP and/or at least 15-20% of total
public expenditure to education.”
Such efforts are likely to be frustrated by IMF’s conditions that
would require Ministers of Finance to re-impose austerity (see
Dispatch Springs 2021). As Isabel Ortiz and Mathew Cummins argued in
April’s Global Austerity Alert, a rapid return to austerity,
including public sector wage bill constraints, is now predicted for
85 per cent of the world’s population, affecting 159 countries (see
Observer Autumn 2020).
Analysing IMF loans from the past five years across 15 countries,
ActionAid International’s October report demonstrated that the Fund’s
medium-term advice resulted in these countries dropping below the
global average for public sector wage bill spending (see Observer
Autumn 2021). Despite the IMF’s claims that cuts should be
accompanied by actions to expand tax revenues, even the few countries
that did so were advised to cut spending on public sector wage bills.
David Archer of ActionAid International said, “To make a real
difference, education advocates will need to draw attention to the
gross contradictions between their aspiration to spend more and IMF’s
austerity policies…They need to enter a systematic dialogue with the
IMF about how their wider policies have unintended consequences on
education spending – and that dialogue needs to be replicated with
Ministries of Finance in every country.”
bit.ly/EduFinance

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