World Bank/Imf To Be Stopped From Demanding Service Fees - International Monetary Fund - Brief Article

"Due to pressure by the United States antipoverty groups of the South and others, the World Bank is to stop demanding that borrowing governments charge the poor for health and education services. The Bank now acknowledges that these fees deprive many people of basic needs.

DAWN INFORMS: Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (2/2000) School of Social and Economic Development, University of the South Pacific, SUVA, Fiji

The United States Congress adopted a Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill on Oct 25 that contained provisions requiring the USA to oppose any International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank or regional development bank loans that include user fees or service charges on poor people for primary education or primary health care.

Primary health care includes prevention and treatment efforts for AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and infant and maternal well being Critics have long charged that WB advice often ends up hurting the poor. . . The WB requires (since 1987) developing countries to impose user fees for health services in order to raise money to meet fiscal deficit targets set by the WB/IMF.

The United Nations Development Program Director of poverty programmes, Stephen Browne said that experience had shown user fees were a deterrent to universal education and universal health. In Uganda where the average person earns less than US $ 1. a day the number of children attending school doubled immediately after $8 annual school fees were dropped 1997. In Malawi, which is even poorer there were similar results.

Fees keep children out of school, especially girls and deny care to the sick, resulting in preventable suffering and poor health. While removing fees will not solve the entrenched problems of poor health and low educational attainment in the pooest countries, elimination of fees will topple a high hurdle."

Editor's Note: These and other World Bank policies damage especially women and girls - despite the claims made by WB president Wolfinsohn. Discrimination throughout the WB and its development programs has and is terribly damaging poor women. Promises made at the Beijing Women's Conference have turned out to be nothing but cheap propaganda. Only when the US took away the money was Wolfinsohn and Co compelled to change policies, that damaged most of all women.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Women's International Network
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group