Marrakech counter-summit demands: debt, microcredit, climate justice, food sovereignty, social movements, migration...

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Marrakech counter-summit demands: debt, microcredit, climate justice, food sovereignty, social movements, migration...

4 November 2023 by CADTM International , Collective

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As one of the outcomes of the IMF-World Bank counter-summit held in Marrakesh, the workshops held from 13 to 14 October 2023 produced a number of proposals, which were complemented by a plenary session on 15 October 2023.

Sommaire

INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS

To fight for the dismantling of the International Monetary Fund 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.

, which serve the imperialist and neo-colonialist powers and have never served the people. We believe that these institutions cannot be reformed.
To establish a Bank of the South and regional banks that are independent of neo-colonial powers and under the control of the people, with investment criteria centred on human rights, social needs, a just ecological transition and open and transparent decision-making.
To encourage legal action against businesses that do not comply with international law. Even if these legal actions are not directly conclusive, they can serve as a basis for citizen action and interpellations.
To promote equitable, solidarity-based and mutual cooperation between peoples.
To get national parliaments worldwide to enact anti-vulture fund Vulture funds
Vulture fund Investment funds who buy, on the secondary markets and at a significant discount, bonds once emitted by countries that are having repayment difficulties, from investors who prefer to cut their losses and take what price they can get in order to unload the risk from their books. The Vulture Funds then pursue the issuing country for the full amount of the debt they have purchased, not hesitating to seek decisions before, usually, British or US courts where the law is favourable to creditors. legislation along the lines of the Belgian law of 2014 in order to limit the speculative power of vulture funds around the world.
To overhaul the role of rating agencies Rating agency
Rating agencies Rating agencies, or credit-rating agencies, evaluate creditworthiness. This includes the creditworthiness of corporations, nonprofit organizations and governments, as well as ‘securitized assets’ – which are assets that are bundled together and sold, to investors, as security. Rating agencies assign a letter grade to each bond, which represents an opinion as to the likelihood that the organization will be able to repay both the principal and interest as they become due. Ratings are made on a descending scale: AAA is the highest, then AA, A, BBB, BB, B, etc. A rating of BB or below is considered a ‘junk bond’ because it is likely to default. Many factors go into the assignment of ratings, including the profitability of the organization and its total indebtedness. The three largest credit rating agencies are Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings (FT).

Moody’s : https://www.fitchratings.com/ and central banks, ensuring that they are part of a financial architecture that benefits everyone. The criteria of financial and economic profitability should not be the only ones used!

DEBTS AND REPARATIONS

To promote democratic, citizen-based and transparent public debt management.
To conduct citizen audits of public debt.
To have the moral, historical, ecological and climatic debts recognised and to demand reparations. This would reverse the approach whereby the global South is the debtor, as in reality it is the South that is owed reparations.
To struggle to ensure that governments repudiate all odious, illegal and illegitimate debts in a sovereign and unilateral manner.
To create a synergy of action between the global North and South for the repudiation of illegitimate debts.
Debt is killing people and depriving them of a dignified life.

MICROCREDIT

To create and organise a special forum on microcredit to decry this system and its adverse effects, and to propose alternatives.
To promote mutualities and other local solidarity savings funds, considering the mental burden on women in difficulty as well as the harassment they face if they are unable to repay microcredits.
Also create mutualities for men, to ensure gender 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. when it comes to major expenses.
To promote public spending to restrict the requirement for access to microcredit.
To support the creation of women’s co-operatives for support and solidarity.

CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

To promote the concepts of ecological and climatic debt and reparations.
To extend and use movements such as “We are the water that defends itself” and create contacts, convergences and links between struggles and movements (even across borders).
There can be no decarbonization without decolonization, and no decolonization without decarbonization.
To get our various governments to get rid of fossil fuels.
To combat green capitalism and false solutions, as well as green colonialism.
To struggle for the decolonisation of information by involving the anti-capitalist media. To denounce greenwashing.
Topics or themes to focus on and tackle: imperialist green growth, green colonisation, transition programmes imposed by international institutions without consulting or taking into account the needs of the population, the fight against consumerism.
Need for convergences between ecological, labor and feminist struggles, and those of indigenous/aboriginal populations for the defense of their territories.
To mobilise on the ground during the COP.
Not to expect miracles from governments and negotiations, and to campaign for a people’s agenda to tackle the climate emergency.
To ensure that local populations are able to enjoy just, dignified and sufficient material and social benefits from what is produced on their land.
To strengthen governance through the participation of community and civil society representatives at all levels.
To impose sanctions on the exploitation and even criminality of multinational corporations, as well as the corruption of traditional and religious leaders and elites.
To hold multinational corporations that violate human rights, harm the environment, and cause destruction accountable for crimes against humanity.
To do away with ISDS in free trade agreements, which gives corporations the right to sue governments for enacting environmental and public safety legislation.
To put an end to unfavourable free trade agreements for small local producers.
To put an end to export-oriented intensive monocultures and favour food crops Food crops Crops destined to feed local populations (millet, manioc, etc.), as opposed to cash crops, destined for export (coffee, cocoa, tea, groundnuts, sugar, etc.) .
To prohibit GMOs.
To regulate the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides better, and promote the use of natural fertilizers.
To combat land grab and dispossession that is detrimental to local populations.
To achieve a fairer land and agrarian reform.
To strengthen partnerships between communities affected by extractivism.
To develop popular education and share Share A unit of ownership interest in a corporation or financial asset, representing one part of the total capital stock. Its owner (a shareholder) is entitled to receive an equal distribution of any profits distributed (a dividend) and to attend shareholder meetings. experiences between peoples.

FOOD SOVEREIGNTY

To struggle against free trade agreements in the global South (AfCFTA in Africa, MERCOSUR in Latin America, RCEP in Asia, etc.).
To fight against the pollution of ecosystems generated by extractive industries.
To support research that is independent of and alternative to the agro-industry.
To raise awareness of the need to produce, process and consume quality local products, and develop local industries.
To improve working conditions for agricultural, fishing, livestock and other workers.
To abandon low-value-added cash crops in favor of food crops.
To combat land-grabbing of the most arable land by land predators.
To make the right to food an absolute policy priority.

FEMINISM

Create a collective with the women who took part in the Counter-Summit, involving them in campaigns and political lobbies Lobby
Lobbies A lobby is an entity organized to represent and defend the interests of a specific group by exerting pressure or influence on persons or institutions that hold power. Lobbying consists in conducting actions aimed at influencing, directly or indirectly, the drafting, application or interpretation of legislative measures, standards, regulations and more generally any intervention or decision by the Public Authorities. .
To include poor women and their demands in feminist struggles, as they are the first to be affected.
To expose, refute, and condemn the policies and practises that financial institutions have towards women, especially in relation to microcredit.
To consider the refusal to repay microcredit institutions as the expression of a legitimate revolt. To support this movement of people refusing to continue to pay, given the circumstances and the dramatic consequences.
To conduct research into the impact of microcredit on women.
To fight for women’s rights to land ownership.
To strengthen women’s capacities (but also sensitize men to change their patriarchal vision).
To strengthen women’s capacities and their political, economic and social leadership.
To organize a feminist summer university.
To strengthen coordination of struggles at regional and international level.
To promote women’s access to education and work.
To implement reproductive health and gender-based violence programs. To take action against exploitation, harassment and sexual abuse of women and girls.
To combat the commodification of women and human trafficking.

YOUTH

To promote training, continuing education and awareness-raising among young people.
To enable them to become responsible and enlightened actors of constructive social change for a better world based on solidarity.
To support their initiatives, research and innovations.
To advocate for policies that do not condemn them to unemployment, social exclusion, marginalization and criminalization.
To act preventively rather than repressively.
To reject short-term policies that threaten the future of generations to come.
To encourage self-organization and self-determination among young adults.

MIGRATION

To strengthen links and collaboration between resistance groups in the North and South.
To fight for the regularization of undocumented migrants.
To abolish FRONTEX (strengthen the existing anti-FRONTEX campaign).
To open borders and combat human trafficking (slumlords, slave labor, sex-work, etc.).
To raise awareness against racism, xenophobia and extreme right-wing parties, by showing that every population is both a migrant and a host to other migrants. (For example: Moroccans face discrimination in France, while sub-Saharan Africans are hunted down by the Moroccan, Libyan and Algerian authorities; Dominicans are discriminated against in Puerto Rico, while the Dominican authorities mistreat Haitians).
Let’s not forget that every child needs an identity, and no racism can derogate from this rule by refusing to give the child a nationality at birth. (Problem of statelessness: some children do not obtain the nationality of the country in which they are born, and cannot subsequently obtain the nationality of their parents because they were not born in their country. Example: children of Haitian parents born in the Dominican Republic; the scandal of little Angelica, born in Belgium to Ecuadorian parents before the law changed to allow stateless children to obtain Belgian nationality at birth. The Belgian law authorizes a municipal official to refuse to recognize the paternity of a Belgian father of a child conceived with an undocumented woman, thereby denying not only recognition of the family link, but also the father’s right to Belgian nationality and thus access to legal residence for a child born in Belgium and its mother. It allows the mother and child to be deported, even if the parents provide DNA proof of parentage. A mere suspicion of a “child of convenience”, without a court ruling, is enough to deprive a child of residence, nationality and the right to live legally with both parents. Suspicions of “white or grey marriages” and “children of convenience” threaten the right to family unity.
To recall that the confinement of children in detention centers for administrative reasons seriously harms their development and is a serious infringement of fundamental rights and freedoms.
To reinforce the protection of Unaccompanied Minors (UAM).
To respect the rights of children in migration situations, as stipulated in The Convention on the Rights of the Child and its optional protocols.
No migration law can separate children, parents or couples who wish to live together. To promote reunification and prevent children from being unaccompanied and far from their families.
To affirm that every human being, whatever their legal status, has the right to dignified and non-degrading treatment, and respect for fundamental rights and freedoms.
A series of record-breaking regional agreements promote the movement of goods and services: we especially want freedom of movement for people.
To make freedom of movement effective, as dictated by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
To put an end to stirring up conflicts between peoples, and the armament and militarization that cause migration. Take effective, proactive action for peace. To reject the escalation of conflicts caused by the capitalist system and the arms industry.
To stop interventions by international forces that do not take account of the human consequences in terms of migration (e.g. Gaza and Haiti).
To implement policies that meet people’s essential needs and combat inequality.
To facilitate DNA testing (free of charge, simplified legal procedure) to identify the bodies of unidentified migrants.
Governments should respect the provisions of international humanitarian law.
To consider internally displaced persons in the same way as external refugees. Internal migration within border countries is far more significant than long-distance migration to more prosperous countries.
To extend refugee status to populations displaced for climatic, ecological and economic reasons, given that the neo-liberal economy is a political choice with disastrous human consequences. For the time being, the Geneva Convention does not recognize the right to protection of people displaced for the above-mentioned reasons.
To fight against the forced return of migrants organized by the IOM under the guise of “voluntary” return, a concept that conceals racism and state violence.
To close migrant detention centers in the USA and the EU, and demand the immediate release of migrants held in these prisons for administrative reasons and illegal residence.
To put an end to the discriminatory, arbitrary and costly granting of visas.
To prohibit and punish all violent repression of migrants at borders, and abolish walls.
To penalize guards who shoot people in distress, and condemn voluntary non-assistance to people in danger.
To not to tie development assistance to readmission agreements, border restrictions, or the murder or abuse of migrants. We must reject allowing the South’s nations to act as the North’s go-betweens.
To stop the militarization and outsourcing of borders.
To stop the Dublin Regulation mechanism.
To strengthen solidarity with migrants, supporting them legally, socially, psychologically and medically.
To support the families of migrants who have disappeared, been detained at borders or died; help them search for the missing, identify the remains, repatriate the bodies and bury them with dignity.
To stop criminalizing migrants and their supporters.

TAX JUSTICE AND REPARATION

To impose taxes on financial transactions as a means of increasing internal revenues to finance the desired change. Undertake bold tax reforms to tax the biggest fortunes, wealth and multinationals, not vulnerable households. Avoid, for example, VAT, which weighs more heavily on low-income households.
To combat tax optimization, tax evasion, tax fraud and tax havens. Lifting bank secrecy on illicit financial flows.
To combat money laundering.
To strengthen cooperation between countries on tax information.
To advocate against dirty investments.
To fight for a fair distribution of rents from extractive industries between states, local communities and operators.
To campaign for tax justice at national, regional, European and international levels.
To explore financial alternatives and innovations, and strengthen cooperation within regional groupings. Try out alternative currency exchanges, set up regional integrations instead of free-trade agreements, reflect on “untied” economic models less dependent on globalization and its shortcomings.

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Trade unionists, community workers and politicians need to reconnect with the grassroots, with the reality of “the people”.
To develop a lexicon of financial tools/mechanisms to help communities appropriate specialized terminology.
To promote civil disobedience.
To promote community governance through citizen control of public action and support for the elaboration of grassroots development plans.
To organize forums for popular expression.
To build a united front between social movements from North to South.
To show concrete solidarity with groups of professionals fighting for their rights, better working conditions and jobs, and who are victims of neoliberal policies (e.g. fishermen in Morocco).

ANTI-IMPERIALIST STRUGGLE

To reject all forms of oppression, domination, imperialism and foreign military interference that threaten peace and national sovereignty, whatever their origin (French, American, Chinese, Russian, etc.) (see the current situation in the Sahel countries).
To invite social movements to join the political system.
To get rid of colonial currencies (CFA Franc, dollarization). Convergence of African states to create a common currency.

INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY

To organize national, regional and international solidarity campaigns with the Palestinian, Haitian and Congolese people.
To organise awareness campaigns against the criminalization of activists, militants, journalists, demonstrators and political opponents.
To denounce their imprisonment, harassment and mistreatment.
To identify and protect all those whose freedom of expression, opinion, association and demonstration is threatened.
To create local support committees for political prisoners.

APPROACH

Neoliberalism must not be seen solely as a political choice, but as the outcome of a class struggle with structurally opposed interests.
We need to do more than just diagnose and criticize: we need to organize and build action plans, with precise objectives to be achieved in a given timeframe, and evaluation indicators to enable rigorous and effective follow-up of collective recommendations.
Progressive and radical left-wing social movements need to be self-critical and accountable to the public for their actions.
To promote self-empowerment and self-organization in development.
Social movements must become more involved in winning and exercising political power, with a view to influencing decisions and bringing about the social transformation of which they are the actors. In this way, they can avoid the diktat of right-wing, neoliberal and fascist parties, whose sole aim is the emergence of a minority bourgeois elite to the detriment of the interests of the majority.
Promote popular education through ongoing awareness-raising campaigns on the issues at stake in neoliberal policies and their destructive effects. Involve local communities. Encourage the sharing of ideas, experiences and collective action.
To expand our counter-summit social movement to other organizations and ensure its continuity. Organize accordingly, with recommendations, an action plan, monitoring indicators and communication adapted to the issues at stake.
To ensure that Marrakesh becomes the starting point for a united international social front against the neoliberal policies of the World Bank and IMF. To spearhead a permanent battle against these institutions and their misdeeds. To renew the counter-summits regularly as long as these annual meetings are held.