What is the Bank of the South?
On December 9th, 2007, representatives from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela met in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to launch “el Banco del Sur” or the Bank of the South (BoS). With the creation of the Bank, the leaders of Latin America envisaged a new development institution to help promote growth and tackle poverty. The BoS was originally proposed in 2006 by Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Chavez, along with other South American leaders, wanted a Bank that would allow them to assert their political and financial independence from traditional international financial institutions (IFIs), like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, and put an end to decades of structural adjustment policies imposed by the IFIs on countries in Latin America.

G-20 Summit – financial response to a development crisis
With the global economy continuing its downward spiral, ambitions for the first Group of 20 (G-20) “Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy” in Washington were sky high. In contrast, expectations in terms of concrete outcomes, with diverging opinions on key issues going into the meeting and a pretender at the throne in DC, couldn’t have been lower.

IMF back in business, but still politically bankrupt
Even before US President George Bush announced plans for next month’s G-20 Summit on the financial crisis (see “Just the Facts”), International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Strauss Khan has been pushing for the IMF to be front and center in addressing the crisis. In a complete about-face from one year ago, Strauss Khan now sees the IMF not just fighting fires through new flexible emergency loan arrangements to address food, fuel and finance crises, but as a “global regulatory coordinator” or world central bank.

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44504

FINANCE: NGOs Call for Radical Reforms as IMF Offers New Loans
By Jim Lobe

For pdf, click here.

October 10, 2008

Re.: Canadian priorities leading up to the Doha Financing for Development Review.  

Dear Minister Emerson:   

The Halifax Initiative would like to thank John Foster, North-South Institute, for his help in developing these FAQs

Revised November 2007

People’s Tribunal Examines World Bank Influence in India
Over sixty social movements, unions, academics, and local NGOs gathered for four days in New Delhi to examine how decades of World Bank policies and projects have affected the country’s economic and social landscape. Testimony, evidence, and research were heard by a 15 member jury of prominent activists, community leaders, retired justices, and academics in an effort to comprehensively assess the costs and benefits of World Bank assistance.

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.

“Addressing Unsustainable and Illegitimate Debt—Strategic Options for Civil Society”

International financial institutions need injection of democracy
Coalition calls on Canadian government to take up UNDP recommendations at the Annual meetings of the World Bank and IMF governors
For immediate release