Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt

With total impunity, they impose and ensure the repayment of suffocating and illegitimate financial debt, increasing their socio-ecological, climate, economic, political, cultural, and gender debts to peoples and ecological balance Balance End of year statement of a company’s assets (what the company possesses) and liabilities (what it owes). In other words, the assets provide information about how the funds collected by the company have been used; and the liabilities, about the origins of those funds. in general.

Behind a seemingly “technical” discourse riddled with good intentions, the IMF IMF
International Monetary Fund Along with the World Bank, the IMF was founded on the day the Bretton Woods Agreements were signed. Its first mission was to support the new system of standard exchange rates.

When the Bretton Wood fixed rates system came to an end in 1971, the main function of the IMF became that of being both policeman and fireman for global capital: it acts as policeman when it enforces its Structural Adjustment Policies and as fireman when it steps in to help out governments in risk of defaulting on debt repayments.

As for the World Bank, a weighted voting system operates: depending on the amount paid as contribution by each member state. 85% of the votes is required to modify the IMF Charter (which means that the USA with 17,68% % of the votes has a de facto veto on any change).

The institution is dominated by five countries: the United States (16,74%), Japan (6,23%), Germany (5,81%), France (4,29%) and the UK (4,29%).
The other 183 member countries are divided into groups led by one country. The most important one (6,57% of the votes) is led by Belgium. The least important group of countries (1,55% of the votes) is led by Gabon and brings together African countries.

http://imf.org and the World Bank World Bank
WB The World Bank was founded as part of the new international monetary system set up at Bretton Woods in 1944. Its capital is provided by member states’ contributions and loans on the international money markets. It financed public and private projects in Third World and East European countries.

It consists of several closely associated institutions, among which :

1. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD, 189 members in 2017), which provides loans in productive sectors such as farming or energy ;

2. The International Development Association (IDA, 159 members in 1997), which provides less advanced countries with long-term loans (35-40 years) at very low interest (1%) ;

3. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), which provides both loan and equity finance for business ventures in developing countries.

As Third World Debt gets worse, the World Bank (along with the IMF) tends to adopt a macro-economic perspective. For instance, it enforces adjustment policies that are intended to balance heavily indebted countries’ payments. The World Bank advises those countries that have to undergo the IMF’s therapy on such matters as how to reduce budget deficits, round up savings, enduce foreign investors to settle within their borders, or free prices and exchange rates.

are fundamental pillars of an international financial architecture that serves the interests of big capital and corporate and financialized globalization. They promote the commodification and privatization of the processes of production and reproduction of life, and deepen dependence and inequality. At the same time, they contribute to the accumulation of ever more wealth in ever fewer hands, increasing the exploitation and impoverishment of the vast majority, especially in the global South.

The advance of the global ecological and climate crisis is not unrelated to the policies promoted and imposed by these international financial institutions (IFIs) and their regional counterparts, such as the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Pollution, loss of biodiversity, uncontrolled global warming—with its multiple consequences of floods, droughts, and other extreme weather events—the loss of lives and livelihoods of entire communities, forced displacement of populations, land grabbing, and the serious and systematic violation of human and nature rights are direct consequences of their programs, loans, and conditions.

However, instead of changing their policies, they are upping the ante. They continue to finance fossil fuel extraction and corporate control of the so-called “energy transition.” They promote carbon trading Market activities
trading Buying and selling of financial instruments such as shares, futures, derivatives, options, and warrants conducted in the hope of making a short-term profit. and other false solutions to the climate emergency, including the deceptive debt-for-conservation, climate, or nature swaps—as a mechanism for financialization and territorial control of the most biodiverse areas of forests, seas, and oceans. The IMF adds to its traditional set of conditions the pursuit of “resilience,” behind which the usual capitalist interests are painted green. They pretend to contribute to the urgent needs of adaptation and mitigation with more loans. And to top it all off, the World Bank takes charge of the fund supposedly created to compensate for the “damages and losses” caused by the very policies it promotes.

Isn’t it time to put an end to the actions of the IMF and the World Bank, shutting them down and demanding sanctions and the reparation of their crimes against peoples and nature?

From the Stop the IMF-WB! Reparation Now! Campaign, we call for the strengthening of popular resistance, the promotion of actions and denunciations, and the coordination of efforts in this regard in the region and around the world. We call to join forces to demand and build real alternatives for living well, based on popular participation and protagonism, the recognition and respect of the rights and needs of peoples and nature, and the exercise of our sovereignty and self-determination.

The IMF and the World Bank were created towards the end of World War II through the Bretton Woods Agreements to promote trade liberalization, monetary stabilization, and foreign investment, all linked to the strengthening of the US dollar as a medium of exchange and reserve currency. Along with the military expansion of the US, they played a central role in the consolidation of the “Pax Americana” and the subsequent rise of a speculative and financially driven global economy.

As we mark another anniversary of their creation, amid the increasing suffering, uncertainty, and violence being experienced as that order and power collapse, we need to strengthen efforts to put an end to such policies and practices and ensure the consolidation of other relationships and institutions.

We thus call to continue promoting collective initiatives in all local, regional, and global settings—including the Week of Action in October ahead of the IMF and World Bank meetings, the Jubilee 2025 campaign, the Ecosocialist Encounters, COP30, and the Peoples’ Summits in Belém and ahead of the G20 G20 The Group of Twenty (G20 or G-20) is a group made up of nineteen countries and the European Union whose ministers, central-bank directors and heads of state meet regularly. It was created in 1999 after the series of financial crises in the 1990s. Its aim is to encourage international consultation on the principle of broadening dialogue in keeping with the growing economic importance of a certain number of countries. Its members are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, USA, UK and the European Union (represented by the presidents of the Council and of the European Central Bank). in Johannesburg—multiplying actions that contribute to:

· highlighting the impacts of the criminal actions of the IMF-WB and their beneficiaries, in relation to the climate crisis and water and energy rights in particular;

· exercising our right to judge and to sanction those responsible for the policies of austericide and dispossession, by holding sessions of the Peoples’ and Nature Tribunal against the IMF-WB;

· achieving the cancellation and non-payment of illegitimate and odious debts promoted and guaranteed by these IFIs, and the restitution and reparation of what has been unjustly taken;

· strengthening resistance to their loans and programs, including in particular those related to megaprojects, extractivism, and false climate solutions; and

· supporting efforts to shut down the IMF and the World Bank and build alternatives anchored in popular participation, sovereignty and self-determination, the rights of peoples and nature, and Good Living.

STOP the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank!

STOP THE IMF-WB! REPARATION NOW! CAMPAIGN