HIV and the IMF/World Bank
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"Blocking Progress: How the Fight against HIV/AIDS is being Un-
dermined by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund"
A new policy briefing by ActionAid International USA, Global
AIDS Alliance, Student Global AIDS Campaign, and RESULTS Educa-
tional Fund is now available (PDF 27 pp. 691 kB) at:
http://www.actionaidusa.org/blockingprogress.pdf
* Is the International Monetary Fund more concerned with keeping
inflation low and maintaining "macroeconomic stability" than
enabling governments in poor countries to save lives impacted by
the HIV/AIDS pandemic?
* Why are more than 4,000 trained nurses and thousands other
health workers in Kenya sitting unemployed when they should be
working to combat the HIV/AIDS emergency in their country?
In advance of the Annual Fall Meetings of the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, a new report accuses the
IMF of undermining the fight against AIDS. The report by four
humanitarian agencies says that despite the severity of the AIDS
crisis, IMF restrictions on public spending in poor countries
are making it difficult for countries to hire more doctors,
nurses, and health workers, as well as to buy the medicines re-
quired to fight the HIV/AIDS pandemic effectively. The IMF's
spending constraints may also block poor countries from accept-
ing desperately-needed outside help. In 2002-2003, for example,
the African nation of Uganda, which faces a major AIDS crisis,
nearly rejected a $52 million grant from the Global Fund to
Fight AIDS, TB & Malaria because it sought to stay within the
strict budgetary constraints it had agreed to maintain in order
to acquire loans from the IMF.
At the recent international AIDS Conference in Bangkok, United
Nations experts called for a massive increase in financing for
AIDS programs, urging that $20 billion be provided to developing
countries by 2007. The report argues that IMF policies that seek
to keep inflation at very low levels do so at the cost of block-
ing higher public spending on fighting AIDS. But the report
notes that many economists think inflation and public spending
could go higher, and therefore IMF policies are unjustifiably
undermining the global fight against AIDS.
"This report should be real wake-up call to people concerned
about the alarming impact of AIDS on prospects for development
and stability," stated Dr. Paul Zeitz, Executive Director of the
Global AIDS Alliance. "It shows the terrible price we could pay
if a rigid adherence to economic orthodoxy wins out over common
sense."
"The IMF's insistence on very low inflation targets must be
scrutinized," said the report's principle author, Rick Rowden,
of ActionAid International USA. "This issue must be brought into
the center of public debate if countries are ever to be allowed
to scale-up public health spending effectively to fight
HIV/AIDS."
The report also argues that the IMF policies make it more diffi-
cult for countries to retain critically-important health care
workers, as a result of the IMF's caps on the amount of money
countries can spend for public health sector employees.
The low-inflation targets set by the IMF lead directly to limits
on the national budgets of poor countries, which lead to ceil-
ings on national health budgets. "Most poor countries would like
to significantly increase spending on fighting AIDS," says
Joanne Carter, Legislative Director of RESULTS Educational Fund,
a US-based citizens lobby group that focuses on combating tuber-
culosis and other "diseases of poverty" in developing countries.
"But they have given up trying to fight against the IMF because
they know that they must comply with IMF loans just to keep
their access to the current levels of foreign aid they are al-
ready receiving. If you go against the IMF, you risk getting
cut-off from all other sources of foreign aid."
Speaking at the World Bank in November 2003, UNAIDS Executive
Director Peter Piot stated, "When I hear that countries are
choosing to comply with the...[budget] ceilings at the expense
of adequately funding AIDS programs, it strikes me that someone
isn't looking hard enough for sound alternatives."
The report notes that because the IMF is basically unaccountable
to citizens of any one country, citizens must call on their own
governments to ensure that the decisions they make on the IMF
Board of Executive Directors do not undermine the fight against
HIV/AIDS. The four groups call on AIDS activists and health pro-
fessionals concerned with combating the spread of HIV/AIDS to
address this issue of ceilings on public spending in developing
countries with their own Finance Ministries or Treasury Depart-
ments, which dispatch representatives to the IMF Executive
Board. "Citizens should call for their own governments to take
steps at the IMF board to change the low-inflation targets that
are conditions in IMF loans that unnecessarily constrain health
spending in countries with AIDS emergencies," said co-author
Adam Taylor, founder of the US university-based Student Global
AIDS Campaign.
The report highlights that citizens of the seven wealthiest, in-
dustrialized countries (G7), whose governments have the most in-
fluence on the IMF Executive Board, have a special obligation to
call on their Finance Ministries or Treasury Departments to take
immediate action on the issue. Paul Zeitz of Global AIDS Alli-
ance said, "US citizens have the biggest responsibility to call
on the US Treasury Department to take immediate steps at the IMF
to abolish the IMF's low-inflation targets that are limiting
spending on HIV/AIDS in the world's poorest countries. The US
Treasury Department must act now if the countries are to be en-
abled to significantly increase their own spending and accept
more foreign aid in order to scale-up the fight against
HIV/AIDS."
The policy briefing will be released at a special Teach-In for
AIDS Activists and NGOs at the 4th Floor offices of the UN Foun-
dation at 1225 Connecticut Avenue NW Washington DC on Thursday
evening September 30th from 5-7pm. Media are welcome to attend
and pose questions.
Rick Rowden, ActionAid International USA
mailto:RickR@actionaidusa.org
Joanne Carter, RESULTS Educational Fund
mailto:carter@results.org
Paul Zeitz, Global AIDS Alliance
mailto:pzeitz@globalaidsalliance.org
Adam Taylor, Student Global AIDS Campaign
mailto:adamrtaylorgj@yahoo.com
Click here for the policy briefing:
http://www.actionaidusa.org/blockingprogress.pdf