April 8, 2005
2005FIN153718
Mr. John Mihevc and co-signatories
Chair
Halifax initiative Coalition
104-153 Chapel Street
Ottawa, ON KIN 1H5
Dear Mr. Mihevc and co-signatories:
Thank you for your correspondence of January 28, 2005 regarding debt relief, additional financing and other development issues. I apologize for the delay of my reply.
KAIROS Statement on Global Day of Action Against Debt Domination
Executive Summary available here in pdf
Washington DC,
December 1st 2003
Dear UN delegations active in the Second Committee;
We, the undersigned NGOs, are encouraged that the UN General Assembly Second Committee is taking the UN Financing for Development (FFD) process seriously by giving careful consideration to proposals made at the High Level Dialogue of the General Assembly (past October 29-30th, New York).
The Financing for Development conference meant an unprecedented effort to build a consensus among a broad set of stakeholders, including international organizations, civil society and the private sector, on means for financing the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and other internationally agreed development goals. However, as some delegations noted during the High Level Dialogue, the Monterrey Consensus was never a finished product, but rather a point of departure. In fact, the credibility of the Financing for Development follow up process hinges upon its ability to build on the broad language of the Monterrey consensus to provide concrete proposals that effectively address the key issues that hinder the availability of resources for development in our time.
Follow-up brief to MPs who attended a Parliament Hill discussion on privatization
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The “Private Interests vs. Public Goods” tour aims to bring Southern activists working on privatization issues at the local or national level to share their stories and strategies with Canadians facing the privatization of health care, education, energy, water and other public services.
Get a copy of "Empty Promises - The IMF, the World Bank, and the Planned Failures of Global Capitalism", which includes over 30 brief articles detailing everything you wanted to know about these two institutions. For press articles resulting from the tour go to the Media button on the navigation bar, to Press Responses to Structural Adjustment. |
Commonwealth Foundation
Brunei Darasalaam
July 22nd, 2003
The Role of IFIs
Pamela Foster
Halifax Initiative Coalition
I may have been asked to give this talk as I, among our Commonwealth colleagues, sit closest to Washington. As there is so much experience in the room in addressing issues of the World Bank and the IMF[1], I will merely start a list of all the ways that the IFIs are implicated in the relentless drive towards privatization of public assets.
First, I would like to quickly share two contextual comments regarding this push towards privatization. It must be situated within the drive towards the end of history, or the ultimate global supremacy of US-modeled capitalism. This victory was declared at the end of the Cold War. The end of history envisions the role of the state being limited to maintaining law and order and a sound investment climate.
Revised - June 18 2003
Structural Adjustment in Canada
Most Canadians would be surprised to learn that economists from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) annually visit Canada to dispense advice. We tend to think of the IMF as an institution that prescribes strong medicine, known as Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs), only to less developed countries. In fact our governments regularly follow the same bitter prescriptions.
In 1990 Prime Minister Brian Mulroney boldly declared that Canada needed to undergo structural adjustment which he promised to deliver through free trade agreements with the US and Mexico and harsh spending cuts. Little changed when the Liberals came to power. Much of the content of Finance Minister Paul Martin’s crucial 1995 budget that slashed our social safety net followed directives that came straight from the IMF.
Click here for pdf
Talking G8: The Travelling Road Show
At the invitation of the Parkland Institute and the Alberta Council for Global Cooperation, the Halifax Initiative participated in education events in 10 cities in Alberta to discuss the upcoming G8 meeting in Kananaskis, in June 2002.
Pamphlet [ PDF file ] (1.5 Mb)
