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No Pravin, it was not progressive or redistributive

28 February 2017 - by Shawn Hatting

The 2017 South Africa budget is not redistributive towards the working class nor is it progressive. Rather it is a standard neoliberal budget, delivered by a state that benefits the ruling class – white and black capitalists and top state (...)
Tribute to Wangui Mbatia

21 February 2017 - by Benoît

Wangui Mbatia was one of Kenya’s best known female activists from the late 1990s. See Kenyans MOURN Death of Wangui Mbatia, A Civil Rights Activist and [Rights hero Wangui Mbatia dies, praised for ideals, (...)
When France Used the Public Debt to Colonise Morocco

17 February 2017 - by Adam Barbe

It is now widely recognised that the French protectorate over Morocco was acquired thanks to that country’s public debt. Guy de Maupassant in Bel Ami (1885) alludes to this possibility twenty years before the event! Yet still today many (...)
Egypt’s new IMF deal comes with a huge price tag for human rights

13 February 2017 - by Mahinour El-Badrawi, Allison Corkery

The government of Egypt has sealed a loan deal with the IMF following four years of negotiations. The impacts of the structural adjustment reforms associated with the loan raise strong human rights concerns, particularly for the status of (...)
The Mozambican debt crisis: How a sovereign state was sold

9 February 2017 - by Mary Serumaga

In 2013 Mozambican government officials formed three private companies and took out illegal secret loans totaling $2 billion. Donors suspended credit to Mozambique because of the loans as the national currency fell by 70% in 2016. Restructuring (...)
Mozambique defaults on its debt

3 February 2017 - by Jubilee Debt Campaign

Mozambique’s secret loans crisis has entered a new phase after the government missed a payment on its debts. Can you take action now in solidarity with campaigners in Mozambique? The country was thrown into crisis last year by the revelation (...)
Labour movements in Congo Brazzaville: Between oppression and self determination

31 January 2017 - by Etanislas Ngodi

Unions have historically been important agents of socio-political change in Congo. But today, the rights of workers are increasingly violated in the context of the current economic crisis. Fearing repression, some union leaders submit to the (...)
5,000 sacked for demanding higher wages: The human cost of Bangladesh’s $27-billion garment industry

31 January 2017 - by Ikhtisad Ahmed

In December, the government responded to a peaceful strike by workers with use of force, legal action and arrests. Supplanting India, Bangladesh is currently the second largest exporter of readymade garments in the world. This principal source (...)
Patrice Lumumba (1925–1961)

18 January 2017 - by Sean Jacobs

56 years ago today, Congolese prime minister and anticolonial leader Patrice Lumumba was assassinated. Patrice Lumumba was prime minister of a newly independent Congo for only seven months between 1960 and 1961 before he was murdered, (...)
Tunisia: 6 years after a quasi-revolution, a never-ending interregnum

18 January 2017 - by Fausto Giudice

6 years is nothing when you are 90 years old. But for people aged between 20 and 30, it is a very long time. Six years ago, the Tunisian people witnessed the escape of a petty dictator, whose evacuation to a golden exile in the shadow of the (...)
New Witch Hunt in Ecuador Against Indigenous and Environment Defenders

6 January 2017 - by Moira Birss

Ecuador became an even more difficult place to be a defender of indigenous rights and the environment. You would think a country with constitutionally-enshrined protections for Mother Nature would support and encourage indigenous and (...)
South Africa’s Deprivations and Depravations Revealed in Jacob Zuma’s Meltdown

30 December 2016 - by Patrick Bond

This week could well be remembered as South Africa’s most important political inflection point since the September 2008 ousting of sitting President Thabo Mbeki by his own party, the African National Congress (ANC). His main tormenter then was (...)
Blind borrowing – Is Pakistan fast slipping into a debt trap?

8 December 2016 - by Dr. Kamal Monnoo

Owing to slowdown in exports and provided external borrowing are not capped, Pakistan’s external debt to export ratio is projected to be at 442% by 2019-20, which obviously will make it unserviceable. Exports, which used to finance 80% of imports (...)
Are we heading for another debt crisis? If so, what should we be doing?

7 December 2016 - by Duncan Green

Just when you thought life couldn’t get more retro (Leonard Cohen on the radio, post-Brexit trade negociations, impending nuclear war), here comes another debt crisis. Probably. Had a good briefing from some key wonks in Development Finance (...)
Fidel Castro: The debt is unpayable

29 November 2016 - by Fidel Castro Ruz

This is the transcription of a speech by President Fidel Castro, at the Continental Dialogue on the Foreign Debt held at Havana’s Palace of Conventions on august 3rd, 1985. Introduction to Fidel Castro’s Speech, by Eric Toussaint In 1985, (...)
What other countries can learn from Costa Rica’s debt repudiation

1 November 2016 - by Eric Toussaint

In January 1917, the government of Costa Rica, under President Alfredo González, was overthrown by his Secretary of the Army and Navy, Federico Tinoco, who called new elections and established a new constitution in June 1917. The Tinoco putsch (...)
BRICS fantasies and unintended revelations

25 October 2016 - by Patrick Bond

As the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa meet this weekend (8th-9th of september) for a summit in India, one consistency is observable from all the BRICS elites: A stream of anti-imperialist chatter even when the intent is (...)
Fathi Chamkhi (Tunisia): “Cancel all debts proven to be illegitimate by audit”

24 October 2016 - by Fathi Chamkhi, Dominique Lerouge, Bertold du Ryon, Freddy Mathieu

Fathi is a member of the leadership of the Tunisian Popular Front, who has also been a militant in the Assembly for International Alternative Development (RAID Attac/Cadtm in Tunisia) since it was founded. He played a leading role in the (...)
The fall and rise of Ghana’s debt: How a new debt trap has been set

19 October 2016 - by Jubilee Debt Campaign

Ghana is in a debt crisis. Having had significant amounts of debt cancelled a decade ago, the country is losing around 30% of government revenue in external debt payments each year. Ghana’s crisis is the result of a gradual increase in lending (...)
2016 IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings: The Bretton Woods Institutions stuck in policy dilemmas

17 October 2016 - by Bodo Ellmers, Tiago Stichelmans, Mathieu Vervynckt

This year’s Annual Meetings of the IMF and World Bank took place against the backdrop of continued sluggish growth in developed and developing countries alike. The impact of the commodity price crash weighs heavily on many developing countries (...)
New discussion paper shows how IFIs and donors continue to influence economic policies in developing countries

12 October 2016 - by Tiago Stichelmans

Eleven years ago, the international community adopted the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness that led to the adoption of several principles to improve the effectiveness of international aid. Reflecting on the widely criticised fact that (...)
IMF increasing its influence in sub-Saharan Africa

29 September 2016 - by Bretton Woods Project

SUMMARY * IMF increasingly active in sub-Saharan African states * New loan contemplated for Zambia * Existing borrower countries struggling to adhere to strict deficit limits set by Fund The IMF is increasingly active in sub-Saharan states, (...)
Philippines: For debt audit and repeal of automatic debt servicing

26 September 2016 - by Freedom from Debt Coalition, Butch Fernandez

FDC calls on PDU30 to prioritize debt audit, repeal of 40 year-old auto-debt payments MANILA, Philippines – Doves seemed to flock in Malacañang today as activist group Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) carried their demands for debt audit and (...)
Tata Mundra Project: Time to End World Bank Immunity

21 September 2016 - by Sushovan Dhar

Fisher-folks, farmers and marginal wage earners in Gujarat, India were shocked to hear about the US federal district court ruling in March this year that the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private lending arm of the World Bank (...)
World Bank Knew Agriculture Loans to Uzbekistan Support Forced Labor

19 September 2016 - by Sputnik News

World Bank has been aiding and abetting the Uzbek government’s gross human-rights abuses, which violates international law on responsibility of international organizations for financial complicity in international crimes, according to the report (...)