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WB/IMF should make stronger push against jobs deficit and inequality
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ITUC general secretary Sharan Burrow stated: “The IFIs should use the opportunity of lower world oil prices to encourage the adoption of carbon taxes whose revenue could finance energy-efficient infrastructures and essential public services. This would help reduce the jobs deficit and also set the global economy on a more environmentally sustainable footing.” The recommendation is included in a statement for the IFI meetings produced by the ITUC and its Global Unions partners.
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How to Reform the IMF Now?
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More than four years have passed since an overwhelming majority of the membership of the International Monetary Fund agreed to a package of reforms that would double the organization’s resources and reorganize its governing structure in favor of developing countries. But adopting the reforms requires approval by the IMF’s member countries; and, though the United States was among those that voted in favor of the measure, President Barack Obama has been unable to secure Congressional approval. The time has come to consider alternative methods for moving the reforms forward.
The delay by the US represents a huge setback for the IMF. It stands in the way of a restructuring of its decision-making process that would better reflect developing countries’ growing importance and dynamism. Furthermore, with the reforms in limbo, the IMF has been forced to depend largely on loans from its members, rather than the permanent resources called for by the new measures. These loans, meant as a temporary bridge before the reforms entered into effect, need to be reaffirmed every six months.
Is 'Financing for Development' Being Outsourced to the Private Sector?
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Getting the right balance between public and private sector roles and responsibilities in the Financing for Development and Post-2015 process will be fundamental to prospects for sustainable, inclusive development. Yet early evidence suggests this balance is already awry, skewed far in favour of private interests. Are we seeing a process of outsourcing the international agenda?
There’s no question that businesses around the world are sources of growth and employment. But they are also the source of the most serious threats to sustainable development—from pollution to illicit financial flows that undermine prospects for public resources.
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Slow Growth, Greek crisis and Ebola on menu of Spring Meetings of IMF/WB
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A sluggish global economy, the Greek debt crisis and continuing fallout of the Ebola epidemic will take focus beginning Thursday when top finance officials gather for the World Bank and IMF Spring meetings.
With high unemployment festering in advanced economies, and emerging countries entering their fifth straight year of slowing growth, how to fire up output and demand is the primary order of business for the world's central bankers and finance ministers in Washington.
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Financing for Development: A Hot Button Issue
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It is clear that traditional official development assistance will not be enough to finance the SDGs. It will continue to play a key role in the poorest countries and in countries destabilized by strife and conflicts. Alliance Sud is therefore calling for at least half the development budgets of donor countries to go towards the poorest countries. Should development aid budgets remain just as big – or small – as hitherto, greater concentration on the poorest countries would nonetheless create big losers as well. In middle-income countries, current development assistance programmes and projects would have to be abandoned. Total expenditure would need to be increased substantially if this is to be avoided. The old demand for 0.7 per cent of gross national income to be allocated to development aid has therefore lost none of its urgency.
