(May 20, 2009) Odious debt-like challenges have been happening under our very noses – we just haven’t been looking for them. That, says Probe International’s Executive Director Partricia Adams, is the underlying theme of a 2007 paper by Professor Robert Howse of the University of Michigan Law School.
Massive influx of aid to Pakistan carries massive risk of corruption
(May 8, 2009) The World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA), which provides billions of dollars in long-term interest-free grants and loans to the world’s 78 poorest countries, is apparently not too concerned about the fraudulent or corrupt use of its loans.
Odious Debt: The Madness of Third-World stimulus
(May 4, 2009) To resuscitate the failing global economy and rescue the Third World’s poor, G-20 leaders have promised to pump the public international financial institutions – the World Bank, the IMF being the largest – with upwards of $1 trillion in new funds.
The False Promise of Gleneagles: Misguided Priorities at the Heart of the New Push for African Development
(April 24, 2009) The Gleneagles Summit, for all its good intentions, gave rise to unrealistic expectations. The heavy emphasis on aid and debt relief made Western actions appear to be chiefly responsible for poverty alleviation in Africa. In reality, the main obstacles to economic growth in Africa rest with Africa’s policies and institutions, such as onerous business regulations and weak protection of property rights.
World Bank lending programme suffers from “material weaknesses” in responding to fraud and corruption
(April 23, 2009) A report on the internal controls of the World Bank’s US $40 billion International Development Association (IDA) has found the current procedures for identifying and preventing fraudulent or corrupt use of aid money to be woefully inadequate. The report is the first of its kind to be done by any international development finance institution.
JAKARTA: Government told to renegotiate German loans for warships
(April 16, 2009) The government should declare void a German government loan to procure 39 used warships, as it constitutes an odious debt, a workshop held at the International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development (Infid) concluded Wednesday.
Demands for arbitration mechanism to end odious debts as IMF receives funding boost
(April 7, 2009) Apparently while the G-20 leaders were agreeing in London last week to quadruple the IMF’s financial capacity to $1 trillion, they had no idea that parliamentarians, intergovernmental representatives and civil society campaigners in Johannesburg were hatching a plan to challenge the massive debts created by IMF lending policies.
Montreal play gives light-hearted look at world debt crisis
(April 7, 2009) Danielle Boudreau’s “The Dictatorship of Debt” is showing at Montreal’s Atwater Library Threatre on Thursday April 9th at 8pm.
Today’s Third World stimulus packages will be tomorrow’s odious debts
(March 31, 2009) In the frenzy to resuscitate the failing global economy, the World Bank and IMF are planning to rescue the Third World’s poor, whom they describe as the innocent bystanders to a problem that originated in the rich north.
Chapter 14 – Corruption in high and not-so high places
(March 19, 2009) A year after phillipine President Marcos and his first lady were forced from office, the U.S.
Chapter 11 – The business of the state
(March 19, 2009) Few know with confidence how the universe came into being but if God had said `let there be light’ while in Colombia, He would not have had enough money left for the rest of creation. Because the truth is that in a country where there are projects which have cost a lot, few have cost as much as the expansion of the electric sector during the last ten years.
Chapter 9 – Givers and takers
(March 18, 2009) Most taxpayers in the rich industrialized countries believe, as the Pearson Commission inquiry into foreign aid believed, that "it is only right for those who have to share with those who have not." Much of the Western World’s sharing, though, has been in the form of loans, not gifts. The Third World has borrowed about one-third of the $400 billion in foreign aid that it has received from the rich countries’ national aid agencies.
Chapter 8 – The new mercantilists
(March 18, 2009) ONE YEAR BEFORE MEXICO touched off the Third World’s debt crisis by suspending payments to foreign creditors, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher rose proudly to announce in the House of Commons that her government had just committed millions to the Mexican government to build the $2 billion Sicartsa steel plant:
Chapter 3 – The Economy
(March 18, 2009) The Environment Strikes Back: The Economy
Introduction – The Tragedies of the Commons
The Tragedies of the Commons
Patricia Adams
Dai Qing
Fan Xiao
Lawrence Solomon
Mu Lan
Probe International
Lisa Peryman
Probe Media
Other News Sources
Probe International 