(June 14, 2009) Pre-empting possible delays in external flows, Pakistan has asked the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a $4 billion stand-by loan to finance the yawning budget gap in the year 2009-10 in case multilateral donors fail to release the pledged amount to Islamabad.
Correa prepares to arbitrate Ecuador’s odious debts
(June 12, 2009) Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa said his government is considering arbitrating a resolution to his country odious debts with multilateral lenders and other governments.These debts were imposed by force,he said Correa said last night in Quito. We have rebelled against the system that established odious, unfair, illegal, immoral debts.
Treasuries are out, Iraq debt is in
(June 12, 2009) The portfolio manager of Templeton Global Bond Fund, Michael Hasenstab, says he’s investing in Iraqi bonds rather than treasuries, U.K. gilts or Japanese bonds. He believes the massive amount of debt occured by the U.S. and other governments over the past year will drive up inflation, weaken their currencies and hamper economic growth.
Omar Bongo, the last of Africa’s “Big Men”, dies at the age of 73
(June 9, 2009) Gabon’s President Omar Bongo – the world’s longest-serving president – died today in a hospital in Barcelona, Spain. Mr. Bongo leaves behind a political legacy marred by corruption and patronage – marking a throwback to an era when Africa was ruled by “Big Men.”
Multinational corporations: The new colonisers in Africa
(June 6, 2009) Before the end of the first period of colonialism African nations were properties of their colonial masters who did what they could to rape the continent of whatever resource they deemed good for the development of their citizens in Europe. Out of nowhere and without any consultation with the people of the African continent, the Europeans met and divided the continent amongst themselves in what has been termed ‘The Scramble for Africa’.
Where has all the money gone?
(June 2, 2009) A recent article by Lord Aikins Adusei in the Zimbabwe Observer asks some pointed questions of the international aid agencies and developed banks. After nearly 50 years and billions of dollars in loans and grants, he says, Africa remains a poverty-striken continent, rife with corruption and political instability.
Asian stimulus packages should fund job-creating infrastructure
(May 24, 2009) Legislators, trade unionists and civil-society groups in Asia have urged governments to focus their stimulus packages on community-based infrastructure investments to create jobs and address poverty that has been deepened by massive retrenchments.
Ending Ghana’s odious debts
(May 21, 2009) Political activist and anti-corruption campaigner, Lord Aikins Adusei, is calling on Ghana’s new government to put politics aside and start initiating economic and development programs. His remarks come after the country elected a new president, John Atta Mills, in a tightly contested vote last December.
Odious debts on YouTube
(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.
Patricia Adams
Dai Qing
Fan Xiao
Lawrence Solomon
Mu Lan
Probe International
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Patricia Adams and Lawrence Solomon
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