IMF/World Bank  80 years it's enough: the cases of Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Kenya, Ukraine, Argentina 

These two undemocratic institutions have been marginalizing and even excluding the states of the global South since they were founded in 1944. They continue to contribute to the neo-colonialism of the richest countries and the richest in general, and they exacerbate climate change, to the detriment of the peoples of the South and the periphery of the North.

It's time to shout loud and clear that 80 years of a financial dictatorship that has maintained and reinforced the oppression of the peoples of the South by the rulers of the North is enough. That more than 500 years of plundering nature and the peoples of the South in the name of Western interests is enough. That the people come first, not the profits of multinationals, governments and the rich. 

Both institutions act for the benefit of a handful of big powers and their transnational corporations that reinforce an international capitalist system that is destructive to humanity and the environment. It is urgent to initiate broad mobilizations for sovereign repudiations of the debt and to build a new democratic international architecture that favours a redistribution of wealth and supports the efforts of peoples to achieve socially just development that respects nature.

The IMF is taking centre stage as the multi-faceted crisis that has affected the world since 2020 deepens. It has signed credit agreements with around 100 governments over the past three years. In each of these agreements the IMF demands the continuation of neoliberal policies.

Various speakers will present the policies imposed by the IMF and the World Bank in countries that are emblematic of the intervention of the Bretton Woods institutions. They will also describe the resistance and alternatives put up by the people and social movements.

Speakers:

Farooq Tariq, General Secretary of the Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee, a network of 26 peasant organizations and a coalition member of the international platform La Via Campesina.

Yulyia Yurchenko, University of Greenwich, UK. She is the author of Ukraine and the Empire of Capital (Pluto, 2017). Member of Socialny Rukh, Ukraine

Balasingham Skanthakumar of the Social Scientists’ Association of Sri Lanka and the CADTM’s South Asia network 

Amali Wedagedara, activist and researcher specializing in agrarian debt and development, Sri Lanka

David Otieno, Kenyan Peasant League, CADTM Eastern Africa, Kenya

Solange Kone, World March of Women, CADTM Western Africa, Ivory Coast

ETC.