One of the more enduring mysteries of the Bush Administration has been what its position on the multilateral financial institutions is going to look like. While the positions the U.S. takes at the World Bank and IMF can be a very crucial matter for millions of people in other countries, it doesn’t get much attention here in the U.S. — including from the President.

A new term has emerged in recent months for those struggling to understand the arcane arrangements made to reduce national debts. “Vulture funds” are a new by-product of cutthroat capitalism: speculators who buy up the national debts of poor countries with the intention of bypassing customary, but not legally binding, financial practices in order to make huge profits at the expense of some of the most impoverished people in the world.

The Bamako Consensus: Another Africa Is Possible!!

The protests demonstrated the continuing strength and unity of the movement for global justice. Activists made clear that the movement will not be silent because of the September 11th events, especially when the politically and economically powerful are exploiting the public’s response to the terrorist attacks in order to further secure the neo-liberal “free trade” agenda. The results of both Qatar and Ottawa are mixed in that regard: the big victories that some corporate and government officials thought attainable were averted, but neither was there a resounding repudiation of their agenda.

More than 50,000 tons of poisonous pesticides lie virtually abandoned in various countries around Africa. Strewn around, unrecorded, stored in leaking containers near schoolyards, residential areas and farmland, these poisons represent a deadly legacy left behind in Africa by multinational chemical companies, often working in tandem with "development" agencies like the World Bank.

In late September, with little fanfare, the World Bank released a response [www.worldbank.org/html/extdr/pb/pbfourdemands.htm] to the four demands circulated by the Mobilization for Global Justice (MGJ), the Washington-based coalition organizing protests and alternative educational events at the joint annual meetings of the World Bank and its sister institution, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), scheduled for September 2001 in Washington, DC. The following are excerpts from a rebuttal composed by twenty organizations, including the 50 Years Is Enough Network. The full document was released publicly in Ottawa just before the beginning of the re-scheduled meetings of the World Bank and IMF.

The following statement, issued two weeks before the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Doha, Qatar, points to the continuing unity of African civil society organizations working on trade issues.