The Bretton Woods institutions – the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF)- have completed 80 years of existence and operations. As people of the global south, who continue to bear the brunt of the impacts of colonial expansion, resource extraction, wealth concentration, climate change and deepening inequality, we demand that these institutions be shut down and make way for a new global democratic and decentralised economic system which protects both people and the planet. For far too long, the World Bank and IMF have been instrumental in entrenching a system of global financial governance that perpetuates poverty and inequality, displaces people and communities, and destroys nature, livelihoods and life itself.
The World Bank and IMF were created in 1944 at the end of the Second World War to ostensibly rebuild war-torn economies and countries newly liberated from colonialism through international economic cooperation. In truth, however, they have globalised a model of development and financialisation that is rooted in the colonial logic of extraction and exploitation and have been vehicles for the continued extraction and transfer of wealth from the Global South to the Global North.
The Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) and austerity measures imposed by the World Bank and IMF respectively included the privatisation of essential public services including water, electricity, education, healthcare and transportation, steep cuts in spending on social protection and welfare programmes, labour market deregulation, drastic wage cuts and labour contractualisation, and the reduction and/or elimination of subsidies in food and agriculture resulting in hunger and food and nutrition insecurity. Not only was the existing public sector substantially shrunk across the global south, but the very conditions of building/rebuilding robust public sectors were eliminated. Rural and urban working classes, poor communities, women, small-scale food producers, indigenous peoples and other marginalised groups were the hardest hit by these policies.
The policy conditionalities at the core of SAPs, austerity measures and so-called Development policy and fiscal stabilisation loans aligned with the economic and financial interests of Western countries that were former colonial powers. These policies, commonly known as the Washington Consensus, boosted the market power of western transnational corporations and established forms of financial-economic governance that have snared countries in vicious debt traps, undermining national sovereignty and people’s democratic control over their resources in the global south.
Projects funded by the World Bank such as big dams, mines, ports, and other large infrastructure projects have displaced entire communities and villages, caused deforestation, and accelerated ecological destruction and degradation. The earth has been plundered, and countless peoples have been dispossessed of their means to dignified livelihoods and lives.
People across the world in the global south and north have risen up against the World Bank and IMF, leading to massive protests challenging their policies and conditionalities. In India, protests by affected communities against the World Bank-supported Sardar Sarovar hydropower project that resulted in large-scale displacement without adequate resettlement and rehabilitation forced the World Bank to withdraw its support, citing social and environmental impacts. Likewise, the fisher people in Mundra, Gujarat challenged the immunity of the World Bank after their sea and fisheries were destroyed by a thermal power plant funded by the World Bank Group. The tea garden workers of Assam have been questioning the complicity of IFC in perpetuating the low wages, and poor living conditions of tea workers giving rise to poverty and child labour. The policies of the World Bank and the push for privatisation and deregulation have impacted people’s access to health and quality education on the one hand and impacted the collective bargaining rights of the labour and environmental regulations. .
Despite the destruction that they have wreaked on people, societies, economies and nature, the World Bank and IMF have faced no consequences. Their respective founding charters provide them with full immunity from legal and material accountability–they are literally above the law. The introduction of Inspection Panels and social safeguard policies have not changed their policies and operations in any meaningful manner, and have reduced all accountability measures to toothless instruments.
Given their origins, history and track records, we believe that the World Bank and IMF are beyond reform. Their governance, policies, and market obsessed economic paradigm are too deeply entrenched in the status quo to allow for meaningful change and their transformation from forces for evil to forces for good. We need a fundamental paradigm change through new institutions founded on principles of democratic and decentralised economic governance, prioritising equality, sustainability, and the needs of all nations, not just a select few.
These new institutions must be committed to truly inclusive development, ensuring that all voices are heard – especially of those who bear the brunt of financial, economic and social insecurity – and that policies are designed to meet the needs of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable populations. They should promote development approaches that are embedded in human rights, protect the environment, and ensure the abilities of future generations to live in dignity, harmony and peace. The new institutions should support genuine debt relief initiatives as a matter of urgency and provide favourable financing that helps countries break free from the vicious cycles of debt dependency.
The new paradigm of financial and economic governance must recognise the interconnectedness of economic, social, environmental, climate and political justice. It must end the financialisation of nature, protect the rights of indigenous peoples, local communities, workers, women and youth, and legally regulate the economic power of transnational corporations.
It is time for the World Bank and IMF to realise that their time is over. These outdated institutions should be replaced by ones that reflect the needs and aspirations of all communities and nations. Only by doing so can we build a more just, equitable, and sustainable world.
Endorsed by:
- Aashima Subberwal – Friends of Earth India
- Abha – One Billion Rising
- Achin Vanaik
- Adarsh K Warman
- Aditya Nigam
- Adv Dr Shalu Nigam
- Agnes Kharshiing
- Alpha Thomson Abumwami – YPC
- Ambika Yadav – Jharkhand Kishan Parishad
- Amitanshu Verma – Centre for Financial Accountability
- Anant Phadker – Shramik Mukti Dal
- Andrew Wheeldon – Bicycle Cities
- Anirban – CFA
- Anne Stegmann
- Annie Namala
- Anshu Kumari – JJSV, Bihar
- Anto Elias – KSMTF
- Aparna – NCDHR
- Aravind Unni – NAPM – SHRAM (Urban Struggles Forum)
- Arundhati Dhuru – NAPM
- Ashish Kothari
- Ashish Ranjan – JJSS
- Ashok Choudhary – All India Union of Forest Working People (AIUFWP)
- Ashok Shrimali – Mines, Mineral & People
- Asmi Sharma – Jan Sarokar
- Avinash Kumar Chanchal – Greenpeace India
- Aysha – Right to Food Campaign
- Badami Lal – Aravallis Suraksha Udaipur
- Banojyotsna – Independent Research Consultant
- Benny Kuruvilla – Focus on the Global South
- Bhanumathi Kalluri – Dhaatri
- Bharat Patel – Machimar Adhikaar Sangharsh Sangathan, Mundra, Gujarat
- Bhargav Oza
- Bhavreen Kandhari
- Bijay Bjai – Bharat Jana Andolan
- Butchaiah Gadde – United Nations
- Chinmay Mishra – Madhya Pradesh Sarvoday Mandal
- Chythenyen – Centre for Financial Accountability
- Debsmita Roychowdhury
- Devaky
- Devidas Tuljapurkar – Maharashtra State Bank Employees Federation
- Dinesh Abrol – Delhi Science Forum
- Disha A Ravi – Fridays For Future India
- Dr Meena Kandasamy – Writer
- Dr Sunilam – Kisan Sangharsh Samiti
- Dr. O. G. Sajitha
- Dr. Suhas Kolhekar – National Alliance of People’s Movements
- Eddy Monte
- Elsy Gomes
- Financial Accountability Network India (FAN India)
- Fr. Eugene Pereira
- Gautam Bandyopadhyay – Nadi Ghati Morcha – India
- Geeta Sahu
- Geo Damin – Poovulagin Nanbargal
- Guman Singh – Himalaya Niti Abhiyan
- Hans Kaushik
- Haripriya B Harshan – CFA
- Himanshu Thakkar – SANDRP
- Himmat Singh – Bahujan Communist Party
- Ian Williamson
- India Greens Party
- Jacob Kurien – Sarvodayasangham
- Jammu Anand – Indian Social Action Forum
- Jannet Cletus – Theeradesa Mahila Vedi
- Jawan Singh – VMKS
- Joe Athialy – Centre for Financial Accountability
- John Dayal – Writer
- John Dsouza – CED
- Jones Thomas Spartegus
- Josephine Joseph – CWCSN
- K VITTALRAO – RAI CENTRE Utnoor, Adilabad
- K.V Krishna Kumar
- Kailash Anerao – Environmental & Climate Change Activist
- Kailash Mina – NAPM
- Kamayani – JJSS
- Kangkimang Takuk – Siang Indigenous Farmers Forum (SIFF)
- Kanhaiya – Aravalli Mazdoor Sangathan
- Kapil Agarwal – YMC
- Kavita
- Khirod Routray – Udyog
- KP Das
- Krishna
- Krunal
- Kurien John
- Lalita Ramdas
- Lambodar Mohanta – EKTA NIKETAN
- Lara Jesani
- Lima Sunil – Fr. Thomas Kocherry Centre
- Linda Chhakchhuak
- Lisa Pires
- Lucas Braganca
- Mahendra Kumar – NCAER
- Maimoona Mollah – AIDWA Delhi-NCR
- Maju Varghese – BIC Trust India
- Mallela Seshagiri Rao – Capital Region Farmers Federation, Amaravathi
- Manan – Independent Journalist
- Manasi – Johns Hopkins University
- Manisha Desai – Center for Changing Systems of Power, Stonybrook University
- Md. Zahidul Islam – COAST Foundation
- Mecanzy Dabre – Kamgar Ekata Union, Maharashtra
- Meera Sanghamitra – National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM)
- Mercy Mathew – Cheru Resmi Centre
- Mohammad Chappalwala – Sambhaavnaa Institute
- Moncy M Thomas
- Monica – Independent Researcher
- Moushumi Basi – Jawaharlal Nehru University
- Mujahid Nafees – MCC
- Mukta Srivastava
- Muralidharan – National Platform for the Rights of the Disabled
- Nancy Pathak – Pension Parishad
- Narayan Lal Panwar
- National Hawker Federation
- Navdeep Mathur – IIM Ahmedabad
- Nawaz – Avsar Collective
- Neelam Ahluwalia Nakra – Founder Member, People for Aravallis
- Nidhi
- Nikhil Dey – MKSS
- Nikita Chatterjee
- Nikita Naidu – Climate Action
- Nitin
- Nitin Sethi
- P. M. Bhattacharya
- Pamela Philipose
- Pavuluri Siva Prasad
- People for Aravallis
- Pervin Jehangir
- Prafulla Samantara – Lok Shakti Abhiyan
- Prakash Chandra Bhagota – SR Abhiyan
- Prakash Louis
- Pranay Raj – CFA
- Pranita Kulkarni – CFA
- Prasad Chacko – People’s Union for Civil Liberties
- Priya Dharshini – Delhi Forum
- Purushan Eloor – Periyar Malineekarana Virudha Samithy
- R Ravi – Samata
- R. Ajayan – Editor, Navayugom, Kerala
- Radha Raghwal – Ekal Naari Shakti Sangathan Himachal Pradesh, District Kangra
- Raj Kumar Sinha – Bargi Bandh Visthapit Evam Parbhavit Sangh
- Raj Shekhar – Right to Food Campaign
- Rakesh Dewan – Sarvodaya Press Service
- Ram Puniyani – All India Secular Forum
- Ram Wangkheirakpam – Indigenous Perspectives
- Ranjan Kumar – JJSV, Bihar
- Rashi Rajgor
- Ravindranath – River Basin Friends
- Rema – Sutra NGO
- Rita Das
- Rizwan – Pension Parishad
- Rohini Hensman – Writer and Independent Scholar
- Rohit Prajapati – Environment Activist, Gujarat
- Roma – All India Union of Forest Working People
- Rosamma Thomas – Freelancer
- Saba Dave
- Sabita Lahkar – NWMi
- Sagari Ramdas – Food Sovereignty Alliance
- Saktiman Ghosh – National Hawker Federation, India
- Sameer Vartak – Paryavarn Samvardhan Samiti
- Samir K. Chakravorty – Freelancer
- Sandeep Pamarati
- Sandiksha Roychowdhury
- Sandip Roychowdhury
- Sanjeev Chandorkar
- Sarath Cheloor – Dynamic Action, Keralam
- Sarika – IGP
- Satheesh Lakshmanan – Poovulagin Nanbargal
- Sauraj Gurjar
- Sayantan Das
- Shabnam Hashmi – Anhad
- Shamala Kumar – University of Peradeniya
- Sheelu Francis – Women’s Collective
- Shehri Mahila Kamgar Union
- Shiraz Bulsara Prabhu – PUCL
- Sho – Jan Jagran Shakti Sangathan, Bihar, India
- Shruti – PhD student at VIT-AP University
- Shweta Tambe
- Shyam – चरागाहएवंपर्यावरण विकास समिति
- Simran Grover
- Sitaram Shelar
- Soumya Dutta – Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha (BJVJ)
- Subham Biswas – Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan
- Suchetana Ghosh
- Sujata Patel
- Sukumaran Krishnan – Advocate
- Suma Josson
- Suresh Garimella – CPI-M
- Sutapa Majumdar
- Tani Alex – Financial Accountability Network India
- Thomas Franco – People First
- Uma Shankar
- Usha Lachungpa – Green Circle, Sikkim
- Usmangani Sherasiya – Samsat Machimar Samaj Gujarat
- Vaishnavi Paliya – Azim Premji University
- Vaishnavi Varadarajan – International Accountability Project
- Vanaja Mercima Soundarabai
- Veena M – Ecosystems Services
- Venkateswara Rao Maddi – Maddi Lakshmaiah & Co Pvt Ltd
- Vijoo Krishnan – All India Kisan Sabha
- Vinay Baindur
- Vinita Balekundri – Maharashtra Hawker Federation
- Vinod Koshy – Dynamic Action
- Yash Agrawal – Fridays For Future Mumbai, & Atlas Movement
- Youth For Himalayas
Working Group on IFIs 