Taking Protests to the Bank.

Downtown Washington, DC, may have been paralyzed last April by people protesting the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, but the organizations still held their spring meeting. The protests, organized by the umbrella organization Mobilization for Global Justice, drew perhaps 10,000 participants from over 100 organizations, who picketed with signs bearing slogans such as Defund the Fund, Break the Bank, and Dump the Debt. The protestors pronounced the IMF and the World Bank to be negligent in alleviating global poverty and promoting sustainable development, and accused the organizations of exacerbating social and environmental decline instead.

While the protestors outside the meeting argued that the means by which funds are disbursed to projects in developing countries hurt the poor because they come with so many strings attached, inside the meeting delegates from developing nations were worrying that IMF money could dry up. The shouts of the protestors may have helped to lead to measures approved at the meeting to streamline debt procedures and expedite debt relief for poor countries. The official communique issued at the end of the meeting acknowledged that the growing debate over the future of the IMF and the World Bank "reflects a concern that the benefits the world economy is deriving from freer trade and more integrated and deeper international capital markets are not reaching everyone."

Although Global Environment Facility (GFF) projects are administered by the World Bank, the protests did not take aim at the GEF specifically. In fact, Soren Ambrose, a policy analyst with one of the protest groups, 50 Years Is Enough, said, "We're not focused on the GEF so there's really not much to say about it."

David Read Barker, president of Monitor International, which coordinates nongovernmental organizations' interaction with the GEF, was disappointed in the protests. "We have an altogether different relationship with the World Bank and want to work closer with it," he said. "I was hoping the protestors could communicate [some important points], but it all seemed superficial and full of propaganda."