The World Bank to visit Dublin November 12th & 13th

The World Bank will visit Malahide, Co. Dublin on the 12th and 13th of November. The talks taking place in Malahide will not be attended by elected 'representatives'. The group meeting there is the financial arm of the World Bank - The International Development Agency (IDA). The people talking and making decisions that will affect the lives of millions will be unelected senior civil servants.

We in Grassroots Dissent agreed that the strength of counter-summit protests is located in the potential for outreach we decided to hold an info tour (details below) on the model of development enforced by the World Bank and the Bretton Woods institutes. We also agreed that a common enemy fosters alliances and we have been working with NGO groups; Debt and Development coalition; Comhlamh; The Latin America Solidarity Centre (LASC) and Trocaire. These groups will hold a Photo Stunt on Sunday November 11th, 11.30am, Dáil Eireann, Kildare Street, Dublin 1. With the support of these NGO’s we have decided to do what we do best...

-provide FREE FOOD (thanks to The People’s Kitchen vegan café)
-GOOD MUSIC (also thanks to Electronic Resistance)
-And plenty of entertainment on MONDAY 12th November

Meet at 12pm at Connolly Station
Assemble outside The Grand Hotel Malahide at 1pm
And picnic & party

The World Bank, IRBD and IDA: Working for a World Free of Poverty”…?
The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) claim to lead the fight against poverty but in a world where over 1 billion people live on less than a dollar a day and the gap between rich and poor is growing, the World Bank have a lot to answer for! As in instrument of destructive global capitalism the World Bank destroys communities around the world by wielding its financial muscle in a number of key economic areas.

Debt
Since the 1980s the IMF and the World Bank have been in control of the debt crisis. Despite the post G8 2005 hype they have refused to cancel unpayable debts owed by countries in the majority world* even though they have the resources to easily do this. Repaying debts diverts resources away from urgently need services like health care and education. Not only this but many of these loans that countries are suffering to pay off actually benefited Western ‘donor’ countries more than they did the ‘beneficiary’ countries. There are a number of cases where the funded projects that were designed and implemented by the World Bank failed, they did not go ahead or if they did they were actually harmful to the ‘beneficiaries’. So the World Bank is making countries pay for projects which they never received any benefit from.

The World Bank seems to have been eager to hand out loans to right wing dictators* who often were corrupt and made off with the money or used it to fund the oppression of the people who are now paying off this debt. For example the World Bank is demanding repayment from the people of Indonesia for loans taken out by Ferdinand Marcos (president from 1966-1986). The people of Indonesia are still struggling to pay off the debts accrued by the tyrannical Suharto (President from 1967-1998).

The bank uses the debt regime to gain power and control of the majority world. As conditions for loans, or in order to qualify for some ‘debt relief’ the World Bank imposes policies that are harmful to people and the environment and that keep ‘Southern’ economies tied to the interests of Western private profit. The bank has called these ‘Structural Adjustment Programmes’.

*Majority world - refers to the majority of the worlds people living in countries that are economically exploited (80% of the worlds people control just 20% of all the resources in the world). Majority world is sometimes referred to as ‘developing’ but this implies the evolutionary thinking inherent in World Bank policies.

*Come see the documentary ‘Dictator Debt’ which examines how the World Bank & the IMF have supported brutal dictators in Argentina, south Africa, Philippines & Congo.
It’s being shown
-in Seomra Spraoi Sunday 4th Nov @ 5pm
-at NUIM Tuesday 6th Nov @ 6.30 – Lecture Theatre 3 in John Hume building
-at Trinity College Wednesday 7th Nov @ 7pm – Location to be confirmed
-at UCD (time, date and location also to be confirmed)


Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAP)
Through loan conditions the World bank dictates to governments how to run their economy. SAP’s call for a slash in government spending and are a tool of economic violence.
Blind to anything other than strict neo-liberal, free trade agenda the bank enforces socially and environmentally devastating policies.

Privatisation
The bank forces governments to sell off basic services to private (often foreign owned) investors. This means the public lose control over essential services and suffer job cuts. In 2000 the Bolivian government accepted a €25 million loan from the World Bank with the condition that water services had to be privatized and the US company Bechtel was awarded the water contract. Bechtel got busy hiking up prices – by an average of 50% and in some cases 100%. People were forced to choose between water or food. The people of Cochabamba resisted this economic violence and took to the streets, eventually forcing Bechtel out. The water service was handed over, loaded with debts to the public.

Public Service Cuts
The World Bank puts pressure on indebted countries to cut their public spending (so they can send more money to the minority world). So countries are forced to spend less on education, health and other essential services. Public service cuts also lead to an increase in unemployment and worsen the situation of people living in poverty. Malawi spends more on servicing its debt than on health, despite nearly one in five Malawians being HIV positive.

Trade
As even Bono and Bob fans are moving towards a Justice not Charity model of campaigning there is a growing awareness of how unfair trade makes the poor poorer and the rich richer. So how does the World Bank make this happen?

Most majority world countries are forced into a 'trade trap'. World Bank loan conditions force farmers to produce cash crops for export rather than food for subsistence. 80% of all malnourished children in majority world live in communities where farmers must grow export crops like nuts, mangoes, or coffee rather than food for their communities. For decades the World Bank, along with the IMF have "advised" governments in the majority world to grow more of their export cash crops. This has resulted in the world market being flooded, driving the prices down. The impact of this has been devastating for farmers in the 'developing world' and profitable for Western Multinational Corporations.

World Bank, IMF and other rotten institutions ensure that it is impossible for countries in the majority world to diversify their trade. They use a number of tools to block their efforts including slapping huge tariffs on manufactured goods. This means that the majority world cannot develop a manufacturing base, they must keep producing ‘primary goods’ so that the minority world has a monopoly on the more profitable economic activities.

These barriers are put in place at the same time the World Bank dogmatically preaches the value of free trade and forces majority world to open their market to goods coming from rich countries. The harmful impact of, for example US cotton being dumped on markets in African cotton producing countries is well document - See www.maketradefair.org.

The World Bank promotes Export Promotion Zones (EPZ), often recruiting young women who are considered docile and hard workers and are forced to work in horrific conditions in sweat shops.

So even a brief examination of their policies shows that the World Bank is a large part of the ‘system’ behind many of the ‘symptoms’ of global capitalism; unfair trade, debt regime, environmental degradation…

The ‘dysfunction’ of the World Bank
The World Bank is an enemy of democracy by its very design beginning with the President who through an unwritten convention is always American. Robert Zoellick a former US Deputy Secretary of State succeeded Paul Wolfowitz (the former Deputy Secretary of Defence, cited as a major architect of President Bush’s Iraq policy as president of the World Bank. When the Bank was established after World War Two the United States put up 75% of the capital to found the Bank and has always been entitled to the largest share of the vote (17%). The G8 countries have a combined vote of over 45% but 51 African countries have only 5.4% while Ireland alone has 0.3% of the vote.

The talks taking place in Malahide will not be attended by elected 'representatives'. The group meeting there is the financial arm of the World Bank - The International Development Agency (IDA).

The people talking and making decisions that will affect the lives of millions will be unelected senior civil servants. The undemocratic structure of the World Bank and the top down way it enforces ‘Structural Adjustment Programmes’ is symptomatic of a RACIST model of development which the World Bank, along with the IMF, has spearheaded. This 'development model' holds that no good can come out of the majority world, suits from Washington must be flown (first class) to 'developing' countries to give advice, as they know better than local people about what's best for them. The World Bank is, along with the G8 carrying out a colonial like exercise.

We reject the World Bank model of development. We reject it because it does not allow for, or show any understanding of, social and human development.

Ireland and the World Bank model of development
The World Bank and its partners in crime equate economic growth with development. Economic growth becomes an end in itself. The Bank promotes an ideology that is having a huge impact here in Ireland. With the self congratulatory euphoria around the Celtic Tiger there has been little public debate around whether Ireland really is a 'developed country'. Having an economy in an advanced stage of capitalism is equated with being 'developed'.

This despite the fact that people die on hospital waiting lists, schools are falling down and we have a huge adult literacy problem, housing waiting lists are out of control (proportionally longer than pre-Celtic Tiger). The same ideology is used as an excuse in Ireland and around the globe: that a rising tide lifts all boats – “instead of increasing the share of the pie that goes to the least privileged sector you must grow the pie”.. blah blah blah. This is clearly not working for those who still live below the poverty line. The gap between rich and poor has widened globally to 80:20 and Ireland is also following this trend with the current wealth disparity between top and bottom increasing to 14:1.

The World Bank has one of the largest research capacities in the world. It uses this to try to legitimize its promotion of economic growth above all else and justify foisting harmful projects on communities around the world. We see in Ireland the Rossport community* trying to resist a harmful project that Shell, a multinational corporation are forcing on them. This is one example of how this global system which the World Bank plays a huge role in promoting impacts on communities around the world, by creating accepted economic thinking and practice.

Unfortunately there is a lot of evidence that the Irish state has clearly bought into the World Bank promoted ideology of placing profit for the few above the lives of the many. We are constantly told that Ireland is one of the wealthiest countries in the world yet 1 in 10 children in Ireland live in ‘consistent poverty’, we have a two tiered health service and are seeing an increase in the numbers of ‘working poor’.

* North West Mayo – see www.corribsos.com for further information on the Shell to Sea campaign

Everywhere the World Bank meet they are confronted by protestors resisting their power. Now they’re coming to Dublin …

Grassroots Dissent
So following various emails sent out on the Grassroots Dissent mailing list* suggesting a meeting time and place, a bunch of us got together in mid-October to discuss the point and possibility of organising an event that would mark the meeting of the World Bank in Dublin on November 12th and 13th. Since we all agreed that the strength of counter-summit protests is located in the potential for outreach we decided to hold an info tour on the model of development enforced by the World Bank and the Bretton Woods institutes.

We also agreed that a common enemy fosters alliances and we have been working with NGO groups; Debt and Development coalition; Comhlamh; The Latin America Solidarity Centre (LASC) and Trocaire. These groups will hold a Photo Stunt on Sunday November 11th, 11.30am, Dáil Eireann, Kildare Street, Dublin 1. (see http://www.debtireland.org/campaigns/index.htm )

With the support of these NGO’s we have decided to do what we do best
-provide FREE FOOD (thanks to The People’s Kitchen vegan café)
-GOOD MUSIC (also thanks to Electronic Resistance see http://www.myspace.com/erdublin)
-And plenty of entertainment

We believe that when faced with illegitimate power structures like the World Bank nothing short of a display of irreverence and rage will do. So join us as we Berate the World Bank Monday 12th November.

* A merger between DissentIreland and the Dublin Grassroots Network - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GrassrootsDissent