[mgj-discuss] FPIF News | Africa Falls Off the IMF Agenda (Again)

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Introducing the latest policy analysis from Foreign Policy In Focus

Africa Falls Off the IMF Agenda (Again)
By Sameer Dossani and Soren Ambrose

World leaders and celebrities declared 2005 to be the "year of Africa"
with much fanfare. Beginning with the UK's Commission on Africa report,
and culminating in some supposed gains for the continent at the summit
meeting of the Group of Eight (G8) wealthy countries, who were cajoled
at several musical extravaganzas featuring the likes of U2, Madonna and
Youssou N'Dour to do more to end global poverty, the year was billed as
a "turning point" for Africa. 

Most of the promises made in 2005 have gone largely unfulfilled.
Instead, poverty continues to deepen in most African countries, and the
international financial institutions have returned to business as usual
in 2006. The clearest indication that old habits are back came at the
IMF/World Bank annual meetings, held in Singapore in September. There,
the IMF's board formally approved a previously announced reshuffling of
voting shares designed to increase the voting power of four middle
income countries -- China, Mexico, Turkey, and South Korea. The biggest
loser was sub-Saharan Africa; its collective voting share, already a
paltry 5%, was cut in half.

Sameer Dossani is Director of 50 Years Is Enough: U.S Network for
Global Economic Justice in Washington, DC. Soren Ambrose is Coordinator
of Solidarity Africa Network in Nairobi. They are both contributors to
Foreign Policy In Focus.

See new FPIF article online at: 
http://fpif.org/fpiftxt/3548

With printer-friendly pdf version at: 
http://

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