A Small Channel - but a Wide Gulf - Apart

Greetings from Batam in Indonesia, where I’m at the International People’s Forum versus the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Only a couple of hours and a few miles from the Annual Meetings of the World Bank and IMF in Singapore, but a world away in terms of perspective, priorities, and people’s experience. This event is being run by Asian civil society movements; the leaders of most events come from the region and the main concern is justice for the poorest people. I have attended interesting sessions linking World Bank and IMF debt to environmental devastation and linking their policies to appalling labour standards. We shall use some of this information at Jubilee Debt Campaign in our forthcoming Debt and… papers. The first ones should be out before the end of the year and we hope they will help people realise the devastating effects that unjust and unpayable debts have on the lives of hundreds of millions of ordinary people around the world.



However, on one issue this Forum and the Annual Meetings across the water agree: the gesture yesterday by the Singapore government to allow 22 of their 27 banned accredited delegates to enter Singapore is too little (all should have been allowed, in accordance with the Host Government Agreement) and too late (already people have been humiliated, months of planning have been wasted and tremendous opportunities for dialogue have been lost). The suspicion over here is that the reason the World Bank and IMF chose the authoritarian regime of Singapore as host for the Annual Meetings was to shield themselves from protests and demonstrations. If so, the feeling is that they got what they deserved. But many of the World Bank staff have worked hard to make the civil society dialogue programme a success and are devastated by the waste of their huge expenditure of money, time and effort. Let’s hope lessons are learned, as it is crucial that we should work together and listen to each other if we are to make progress.