The conditions of IMF loans to states facing debt crises increase inequalities and threaten people’s economic, social and cultural rights, Human Rights Watch warned this Monday.
In a report published today, the international human rights organization criticizes the IMF (International Monetary Fund), considering that the Fund should prioritize human rights and not austerity.
“Despite its promises to learn from past mistakes, the IMF is promoting policies that have a long history of exacerbating poverty, inequality, and weakening rights,” charges Human Rights Watch (HRW).
The report, called “Vanda on a bullet wound: the IMF’s social spending floors and the Covid-19 pandemic”, analyzes the loans approved between March 2020 – at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic – and March this year in 38 countries, concluding that “the vast majority are conditioned by austerity policies, which reduce public spending or increase taxes in a way that could harm the rights” of the 1.1 billion people affected.
HRW’s assessment also confirms that the promises announced by the IMF at the beginning of the pandemic to mitigate these impacts “failed or were ineffective.”
According to HRW, an internal IMF investigation also indicated that the policies adopted by the Fund are generally ineffective in reducing debt, which is its main objective.
The IMF’s World Economic Outlook, published last April, found that fiscal consolidations – a term normally associated with austerity programs – “have not reduced average debt ratios.”
As the human rights organization recalls, “although the United Nations Human Rights Council has adopted guiding principles to ensure economic recoveries that promote benefits for the entire population,” 32 of the programs analyzed included at least one measure that threatened human rights. of people.
Among the programs addressed by HRW, “22 included measures to contain or reduce the wage bill, generally by freezing hiring or limiting or reducing salaries, compromising the ability of governments to provide quality public services.”
In addition, “23 programs included measures to increase revenue from the value-added tax, an indirect tax that tends to exacerbate inequalities,” the organization warns, adding that “20 programs eliminated or reduced subsidies based on the consumption of fuel (…) without compensatory measures”. or support for clean energies”.
Although HRW admits that there has been greater concern on the part of the IMF, it emphasizes that “the increased attention paid to social spending and social protection lacks objective and consistent criteria to make them effective.”
On the other hand, “measures to improve social protection, generally designed in collaboration with the World Bank, do not meet human rights standards,” he says.
Therefore, the IMF must “carry out comprehensive reforms” that support governments but that “enable everyone to realize their economic, social and cultural rights,” he concludes.
Source: TSF
