The latest joint meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund held in Prague has again shown that the leading industrialized countries of the world are primarily concerned with their own problems, even though the main issue on the agenda that brought together the finance ministers from 182 countries was combating poverty. The weekend before the last, G7 representatives addressed, seemingly quite successfully, the issue of high oil prices and the weak euro. After the joint intervention of the European Central Bank and the US Treasury Department the Friday before the last, the euro exchange rate began to rise and early last week again reached 90в. The finance ministers also adopted a joint statement promising to carry out policies to foster oil market stability.
Opening the meeting, WB president James Wolfenson recognized that poverty is the challenge of our age. He called criminal the decrease in international aid over the last decade. Four years ago, the WB and IMF adopted a program to fight poverty, which would relieve the debt burden of the ten poorest nations. However, this never went beyond words. In Prague it was stated that the scheme for debt reduction by $50 billion will involve twenty countries, rather than ten.
Canada proposed a moratorium on debt repayment by Third World countries in order to lessen their debt burden. Demonstrators in the streets of Prague carried banners reading, “Welcome, World Bank bandits and IMF Mafia,” demanding a total write-off of the debts of poor countries. As an argument in support of their position they staged a symbolic burial of the 19,000 children that die daily in poor countries as their governments are forced to economize on health services in order to pay current debts. Ann Pettifor, the organizer of the action and chairperson of Jubilee 2000 Anti-Global Group, told AP, “We need to unmask the injustice of the IMF and WB, which act as judge, jury, and executioner when the issue concerns cancellation of debts and impact on lives of millions of poor people.”
The IMF’s Finance Committee provides its own prescription how to overcome poverty: stability, reforms, lifting of trade barriers.
Ukraine, represented at the autumn IMF-WB summit by its Finance Minister Ihor Mitiukov pursued simple goals: “to restore confidence to our country from the private investor’s viewpoint and resume EFF funding,” as Vasyl Rohovy, Minister of the Economy, told Interfax-Ukraine. However, the issue of major importance to Ukraine, that is the resumption of financing, was never discussed, said Natalia Zarudna, press secretary of the Prime Minister.
Obviously, WB President James Wolfenson wants to see for himself the progress in market reform in Ukraine during his visit to Kyiv slated for December 4-6.
