ActionAid: 2024 IMF/World Bank Meeting, a Damp Squib Short of Addressing Issues

Michael Olugbode in Abuja

ActionAid has said the 2024 International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Annual meetings in Washington, D.C., were a damp squib that fell short of addressing the bread-and-butter issues for people living in poverty.  

The IMF forecasts of high debt and slow growth, especially among Global South countries, and its recommendations for even more fiscal adjustments, public sector wage rationalisation, and the social acceptability of structural reform are testament to their continued failure and inability to show relevance for the global majority in the 21st century.

The Global Economic Justice Lead at ActionAid International, Roos Saalbrink, said: “We see once again how the IMF is not fit for purpose and unable to offer real solutions to the economic crises they helped to create.

“The decision to stick to old ways and pursue harmful policies, such as public sector wage cuts, is a blatant disregard for decades of evidence that has shown that this does not work and for rapidly growing inequality.  

“The IMF seems unable to see reality outside its econometric models. Sadly, the lack of meaningful action to arrest the debt crisis and put an end to austerity could spell doom for the global majority, whose voices demanding a break from the failures of the past are yet again ignored.”

On her part, the Policy Specialist at ActionAid UK, Jessica Mandanda, said, “It has been 80 years, and we find ourselves, yet again, at odds with the International Financial Institutions, with consistent contradictions in what they say and what they do.

“What is crystal clear is that the IMF is completely out of touch and disconnected from the lived realities of billions across the world who are suffering because of austerity and bad policy advice.”