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.

EDC Gives Nod to Human Rights Considerations
But the Jury is still out on whether the Crown Corporation has gone far enough.

By Lee Berthiaume

The Export Development Act, which came into force in 1969, established Export Development Canada and continu

EDC in the spotlight – beyond responsible to accountable
A statutorily-mandated review of the Export Development Act, the legislation that governs operations at Export Development Canada (EDC), is currently being conducted by the Minister of International Trade (see Just the Facts).

June 5, 2008
Ms. Karyn Keenan and Mr. Denis Tougas
c/o The Halifax Initiative
153 Chapel Street
Ottawa ON KIN 1H5

This refers to your letter of April 25 to Mr. Eric Siegel, President and Chief Executive Officer of Export Development Canada concerning the Tenke Fungurume project. We are pleased to have an opportunity to continue our dialogue with you including our earlier exchange of letters in 2007.

April 25, 2008

Mr. Eric Siegel
President and Chief Executive Officer
EDC
151 O’Connor St.
Ottawa, ON
K1A 1K3

Dear Mr. Siegel:

On March 20, the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo publicly released the report of the Mining Contract Review Commission. The Commission is an inter-ministerial body mandated to review numerous contracts that were awarded to mining companies between 1996 and 2005 in the DRC. The Commission confirms that many of the contracts are highly irregular and that their terms are extremely unjust. The government body recommends that a significant number of these agreements be annulled and in some cases, renegotiated.

Innovative financing for development gets boost
As the World Bank, IMF and World Trade Organization are set to discuss innovative financing at their bi-annual High-Level meeting at the UN next month, and UN representatives address the issue in their review of Chapter IV of the Monterrey Consensus days later (see IU January 2008), innovative finance has gotten a series of unexpected boosts from various sides.

March 28, 2008

The Honourable James Flaherty
Minister of Finance
House of Commons
Wellington St.
Ottawa, ON
K1A 0A6

Dear Minister Flaherty:

I am writing with respect to the 2007 OECD Revised Council Recommendation on Common Approaches on the Environment and Officially Supported Export Credits. The Recommendation currently lacks a credible mechanism to monitor Member implementation and I write to urge Canada to support the adoption of a peer review system. I understand that the Secretariat of the OECD Export Credit Group (ECG) intends to include the issue of peer review for the Common Approaches in the agenda of the upcoming ECG meeting in April 2008. A peer review system is essential to generate credible information for use in the 2010 report to the OECD Council on the implementation of the Recommendation.

The changing face of global development finance
In 2007 Brazil’s Development Bank issued loans worth more than double the entire World Bank portfolio. More than half of the increase in aid since 2002 comes from debt relief, rather than new funding commitments. What’s more, from 1995-2005, Africa saw no net increase in its development aid despite a 35% increase in commitments to global aid over that period. In 2007, China financed more infrastructure projects in Africa than all multilateral and bilateral donors combined. The Gates Foundation provides more funding for neglected developing country diseases than all of the Group of Seven. These were some of the facts that emerged at an HI conference on “The Changing Face of Global Development Finance - Impacts and implications for aid, development, the South and the Bretton Woods Institutions.”

Corruption back on the Bank’s agenda?
Evidence of serious fraud and corruption has emerged in five Bank-funded health projects in Orissa, India. The $570 million for malaria, tuberculosis and HIV-AIDS control was implemented from 1997 to 2003. The charges emerged from a Detailed Implementation Review (DIR) of projects in India begun in 2006, a process itself triggered by evidence of corrupt practices by two pharmaceutical companies involved in another Bank health scheme. The Indian government has pledged to take “exemplary punishment” of the parties involved.