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The World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings took place late last week and over the weekend as did the G20 Finance Ministers. The NGO community was active as usual but not with much gusto. Here is a round-up of NGO actions and repsonses to the meetings.

The NGO community once again rolled into Washington for the Spring Meetings. It appeared that the overall numbers of NGOs were down and there were not many of the larger INGOs present. The World Bank had supported the travel of a  civil society representatives from Northern African which gave the meetings a new and interesting perspecitive on the recent Arab Spring revolutions.

There was not really much energy in the meetings, however, with few people expecting major advances either at the Bank and IMF governing boards or the G20. Indeed, Actionaid decided not to issue any reactive press releases as the outcomes of the meetings were not all the news worthy. A pedistrian set of meetings with small shoots of hope.

The NGO Agenda
The NGO agenda included food price stability (Actionaid, Oxfam and ONE); FTT and the innovative financing agenda (Oxfam, Coalition PLUS, and the Robin Hood Campaign); IMF gold sales revenue (Oxfam, Actionaid and Jubilee USA); Green issues (350.org, Friends of the Earth). The Civil Society Policy Forum arranged by the Bank included sessions on transparency, conditionality, aid effectiveness, taxes, education, health, food price volitility, and youth and jobs.

Innovative Financing
The Robin Hood Campaign put out a call to the G20 Finance Ministers and Bill Gates (a de facto member of the G20 for 2011 it seems) asking them all to implement the G20 as the French government has put it firmly on the G20 agenda and it is "an idea that has come of age".

Interaction, in partnership with the French government, Actionaid, Center for Strategic & International Studies the Leading Group and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, held a seminar on titled "Meeting Needs of Developing Countries: The Role of Innovative Financing". Speakers included the French Development Minister, Henri de Raincourt, Sarah Anderson from the Institute for Policy Studies and Geoff Lamb from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and seemingly, Bill Gates representative to the G20. The meeting discussed the role of new forms of financing, although not all the speakers endoresed a fully fledged financial transaction tax.

The call for a FTT was, however, endorsed by the African Finance Ministers that attended the meeting which according to Oxfam France "les pays africains ont donne un signal tras claire... ils confirment le caractere ineluctable do ce nouvel outil au service du developpement at du climat."

Overall, the NGO community at the Spring Meetings was pleased that the French put the issue on the table, even though, according to reports, the body language from the participating Finance Ministers was not encouraging. There was no break through and the best response Oxfam could muster was "The G20's increased focus on a financial transaction tax could be a real breakthrough for the poorest countries...".

Food Speculation
The World Bank pushed food and hunger like a real NGO over the Spring Meetings. The main atrium of the Bank was filled with paper cut outs of people with their stories 'attached' telling of the issues of food security and hunger facing people. Indeed, the NGO community did not really make a priority of the food issue once again, despite there being strong support for the issue in the multilateral organisations.

That said, Oxfam welcomed the Bank and Spring Meeting's focus on food calling it very promising but added "Governments are going to have to curb food price volatility and excessive speculation by improving transparency and regulations of the commodity markets." Oxfam also called on the World Bank to work closely with UN agencies as "it can't try to solve these problems itself". In repsonse to the G20's call for better transparency and regulation of commodity markets, Oxfam added that fast action was needed on these issues.

Actionaid and the ONE Campaign (a combo not often seen outside of the US) joined forces to call on the G20 to support the World Bank's food fund (GAFSP) and fully fund this initiative. Oxfam commented that "Donoers who have pledged fundingto the fund have run out of excuses They should live up to their commitments". 

Green Issues
In the lead-up to the Spring Meetings, a coalition of 350.org, Friends of the Earth, Ground Work, IPS, Jubilee, Oil Change International and the Sierra Club called on the World Bank to stop fossil fuel lending and focus on funding renewable energy. The groups organised a small protest outside the Bank on the 15th April.

Greenpeace put out a new report on the role of the consultancy, McKinsey, which Greenpeace alleges is helping Indonesia and Guyana protect their logging industry while at the sametime accessing millions of dollars from the REDD fund meant to protect trees.

Meanwhile, Oxfam welcomed the G20's backing of a Green Fund for climate change, calling it 'good news'

Gold Sales
Actionaid, Oxfam and Jubilee USA joined together to stage a media stunt calling on the IMF to use its windfall profits of $2.8 billionm from gold sales to help the poorest countries. According to Jubilee USA, the IMF board is discussing the options for the money including new loans for poor countries; adding it to the IMF's operating expenses or adding it to the Fund's reserves. Melinda St Louis, from Jubilee said: "It is difficult to understand how some IMF directors would prefer to sit on an extra $3 billion for a rainy day for bureaucrats instead of helping poor countries weather natural disasters and food price shocks."

Festival of Resistance
In a reprise of the 2000 - 2001 years of World Bank & IMF protest, the group, IMF Resistance, held a concert at a local church to celebrate IMF resistance. They also staged a small protest early in the morning of the 16th April, which, according to the IMF Resistance Network site, two people were briefly arrested.

 
The Spring Meetings in Pictures:

The World Bank & IMF Spring Meetings and bike

The IMF Resistance Network Stunt

 

The World Bank's Put Food First Installation