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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
imposed its programme on Ecuador, aiming for macro-economic stability in the short term so that the country could once again be in a position to repay its debts. The programme took the form of the signature of a “letter of intent” between the indebted country and the IMF, demanding anti-social policies such as fiscal / budget austerity, devaluation
Devaluation
A lowering of the exchange rate of one currency as regards others.
of the currency, price liberalization, etc. Between 1983 and 2003, Ecuador signed 13 letters of intent. Successive governments of Ecuador, until the election of Rafael Correa in November 2006, did not hesitate to sign these documents, despite the mainly negative impact that the measures they prescribed had on the majority of the population. Since 2017, President Lenin Moreno has returned to the fold of the IMF 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.
, triggering massive popular mobilization, especially in October 2019.
In Ecuador, the radical neoliberal U-turn was accentuated in the 1990s by the enshrinement of the Washington Consensus
The radical neoliberal U-turn was accentuated in the 1990s when the Washington Consensus was enshrined (see Box) and the Ecuadorian economy entered the global economy, particularly when Sixto Durán Ballen was President of the Republic, from 1992. That coincided with the World Bank’s agenda, as the latter strongly increased its activity and influence in Ecuador from the late 1980s, early 1990s. In Ecuador as in many developing countries, the Bank conceded loans tied to measures aiming to open up markets, reduce the State’s role in managing the economy and increase the power of private banks to regulate monetary flows.
| What is the Washington Consensus? It began with a theory propounded in 1989 by the British economist John Williamson, then teaching in the United States, on the measures included in the structural adjustment
Structural Adjustments policies were enforced in the early 1980 to qualify countries for new loans or for debt rescheduling by the IMF and the World Bank. The requested kind of adjustment aims at ensuring that the country can again service its external debt. Structural adjustment usually combines the following elements : devaluation of the national currency (in order to bring down the prices of exported goods and attract strong currencies), rise in interest rates (in order to attract international capital), reduction of public expenditure (’streamlining’ of public services staff, reduction of budgets devoted to education and the health sector, etc.), massive privatisations, reduction of public subsidies to some companies or products, freezing of salaries (to avoid inflation as a consequence of deflation). These SAPs have not only substantially contributed to higher and higher levels of indebtedness in the affected countries ; they have simultaneously led to higher prices (because of a high VAT rate and of the free market prices) and to a dramatic fall in the income of local populations (as a consequence of rising unemployment and of the dismantling of public services, among other factors). IMF : http://www.worldbank.org/
Ostensibly the Washington Consensus agenda aims to reduce poverty through economic growth, the free interplay of market forces, free trade and the least possible State intervention. Deep down, the hidden agenda of the Washington Consensus is a policy aiming both to guarantee the continued leadership of the United States at the global level and also to rid capitalism of the limits imposed on it after the Second World War. Those limits were the combined result of powerful social mobilizations in the South and in the North, of the move towards emancipation of certain colonized peoples and of attempts to break free of capitalism. The Washington Consensus has also led to the intensification of the productivist-extractivist model. In recent decades, within the framework of the Consensus, the World Bank and the IMF have reinforced their ability to put pressure on a great many countries by taking advantage of the situation created by the debt crisis. The World Bank has developed its subsidiaries (the International Finance Corporation – IFC, the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency – MIGA, the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes – ICSID
Contrary to some opinions defending the fact that ICSID mechanism has been widely accepted in the American hemisphere, many States in the region continue to keep their distance: Canada, Cuba, Mexico and Dominican Republic are not party to the Convention. In the case of Mexico, this attitude is rated by specialists as “wise and rebellious”. We must also recall that the following Caribbean States remain outside the ICSID jurisdiction: Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Dominica (Commonwealth of) and Suriname. In South America, Brazil has not ratified (or even signed) the ICSID convention and the 6th most powerful world economy seems to show no special interest in doing so. In the case of Costa Rica, access to ICSID system is extremely interesting: Costa Rica signed the ICSID Convention in September, 1981 but didn’t ratify it until 12 years later, in 1993. We read in a memorandum of GCAB (Global Committee of Argentina Bondholders) that Costa Rica`s decision resulted from direct United States pressure due to the Santa Elena expropriation case, which was decided in 2000 : https://icsid.worldbank.org/apps/ICSIDWEB/Pages/default.aspx
For example, the World Bank grants a loan on condition that the system of water sanitation and distribution be privatized. As a result, the State enterprise is sold off to a private consortium which happens to include among its members the IFC, a subsidiary of the World Bank. When the population affected by the privatization revolts against the sharp increase of tariffs and the fall in the quality of services provided, the public authorities challenge the predatory transnational company and the settlement of the dispute is entrusted to the ICSID, which becomes both judge and defendant. We have thus reached a situation where the World Bank Group is present at every level: 1) imposing and financing privatization (the World Bank); 2) investing in the privatized company (IFC); 3) guaranteeing the company (MIGA); 4) settling disputes (ICSID). The collaboration between the World Bank and the IMF is also a fundamental element in bringing maximum pressure to bear on governments. One basic difference distinguishes the agenda proclaimed by the Washington Consensus from its hidden version. The hidden agenda, the one that is actually implemented, aims to force all public and private spheres of all human societies into the logic of making maximum profit
One of the many paradoxes of the hidden agenda is that, pretexting the end of State dictatorship and the liberation of market forces, governments allied to transnational corporations use the coercive action of public multilateral institutions (World Bank-IMF-WTO
However the Washington Consensus should not be understood as a power-mechanism and a project which only concern the government of Washington alongside the World Bank /IMF duo. The European Commission, most European governments, the Japanese government all embrace the Washington Consensus and have translated it into their respective languages, draft constitutions and political programmes. |
The World Bank shares with the political class that supports it, responsibility for the fraudulent and illegitimate indebtedness incurred, flying in the face of fundamental human rights and State sovereignty.
Ecuador’s debt towards the World Bank (IBRD)
Between 1990 and July 2007, the World Bank (IBRD) paid 1.44 billion dollars to Ecuador while over the same period, the Ecuadorian government paid back to that same institution 2.51 billion dollars. In other words, over the period 1990-July 2007, the World Bank made a profit of 1.07 billion dollars on the backs of the people of Ecuador. The World Bank has been repaid many times over.
The World Bank has been repaid many times over
By 30 November 2007, Ecuador’s total public debt towards the World Bank Group reached 704.4 million dollars.
Had Ecuador decided, in 2008, to repudiate its entire debt towards the World Bank (i.e. 704.4 million dollars), as recommended by the Debt Audit Commission (see below), that decision would have enabled the country to save over a billion dollars (adding the interest
Interest
An amount paid in remuneration of an investment or received by a lender. Interest is calculated on the amount of the capital invested or borrowed, the duration of the operation and the rate that has been set.
no longer to be paid to the capital to be refunded). Such a sum would have enabled the funding of breakfast and lunch for 1.28 million schoolchildren, [1] for 15 years. Or the amount saved would have covered five years of health insurance for the country’s poor and destitute populations. [2]
The nefarious role of the World Bank in terms of financial deregulation
The World Bank’s intervention in defining the economic and social policies applied in Ecuador was intensive and permanent until 2006 and now, after an interruption of several years during Rafael Correa’s mandate, it is back with a vengeance. Several important loans from the World Bank that Ecuador must pay back until 2025 and beyond were clearly aimed to support changes in the country’s laws. These reforms fostered, when they did not actually trigger, several financial crises throughout the 1990s, including the major banking crisis of 1999, with its terrible consequences for the economy and the country’s population. [3] The World Bank’s intervention was clearly damaging and in short constituted a dol, a French term meaning fraud by deceit, against the country.
In Ecuador, the World Bank fostered several financial crises throughout the 1990s, including the major banking crisis of 1999
The World Bank’s responsibility in the explosion of that big financial crisis goes back to1993-1994, when, as part of a process to “modernize” the State, it granted loans intended to fund legal reforms aimed at complete deregulation of the banking sector, leading to the total collapse of the banks in 1999.
- The 1993 Law Modernizing the State, Privatizations and Management of Public Services by Private Initiative (Ley de Modernización del Estado, Privatizaciones y Prestación de Servicios Públicos por parte de la iniciativa privada) opened up domains hitherto reserved for State management to private sector participation as well as merging or eliminating public institutions. The Law increased the attributions of the National Council for Modernization (CONAM, Consejo Nacional de Modernización), an entity whose function was to implement the privatization of public services, particularly in the oil, electricity and water sectors.
- The Law of Monetary Regulation and the State Bank (Ley de Regimen monetario y Banco de Estado) reinforced the independence of the Central Bank
Central Bank
The establishment which in a given State is in charge of issuing bank notes and controlling the volume of currency and credit. In France, it is the Banque de France which assumes this role under the auspices of the European Central Bank (see ECB) while in the UK it is the Bank of England.ECB : http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/Pages/home.aspx
and instigated the free determination of interest rates and free access to the currency market. - The 1993 Law of Promotion of Investments (Ley de Promocion de Inversiones) eliminated control of capital flows.
- The 1994 General Law of the Institutions of the Financial System (Ley General de Instituciones del Sistema financiero) made far-reaching transformations in the liberalization of banking activities – offshore offices, the multiplication of financial entities, loans from the Central Bank to private banks (causing inflation
Inflation
The cumulated rise of prices as a whole (e.g. a rise in the price of petroleum, eventually leading to a rise in salaries, then to the rise of other prices, etc.). Inflation implies a fall in the value of money since, as time goes by, larger sums are required to purchase particular items. This is the reason why corporate-driven policies seek to keep inflation down.
to explode) etc. – and limiting the capacity and attributions of banking supervision.
These legal provisions led to the creation in Ecuador’s Central Bank of a single account for all the institutions to receive transfers from the Ministry of Economy and Finance. This resulted in the use of private banking networks and the reduction of the number of Central Bank accounts held by public institutions. It fulfilled the Ecuadorian government’s commitment, in the letter of intent it had signed with the IMF in 1990, to prepare, under the auspices of the World Bank, a global reform of the finances of town councils, provincial councils and other government bodies to reduce the amounts transferred from central government and supposedly to improve spending decisions at the local level and, through a fairer and more transparent system, be more accountable for participation in public revenue.
- (CC – Wikimedia)
As Piedad Mancero, who was a member of the Ecuador Debt Audit Commission in 2007, explains: “It wasn’t long before the consequences made themselves felt: an inordinate number of finance companies, the first crisis in 1995, currency speculation, banks failing in 1998-1999.(…) It was obvious: the Central Bank’s resources allocated to such loans came from Treasury issues that generated galloping inflation of the mass of currency in circulation, uncontrollable inflationary pressure and speculative demand for currency, which contributed to the great financial crisis of 1999 and the over-hasty adoption of dollarization in January 2000” [4].
Lastly, in 1998, the Law of the Capital Market (Ley de Mercado de Capitales) and the Law of Reorganization of Economic Matters (Ley de Reordenamiento en Materia Economico) completed the World Bank’s destructive work. The Agency for Guaranteeing Deposits (Agencia de Garantía de Depósitos), AGD, was created: it guarantees
Guarantees
Acts that provide a creditor with security in complement to the debtor’s commitment. A distinction is made between real guarantees (lien, pledge, mortgage, prior charge) and personal guarantees (surety, aval, letter of intent, independent guarantee).
all deposits, offshore and onshore, without restriction, and made it possible for the Central Bank to grant loans to banks in difficulty and to acquire AGD bonds. [5] Officially created to prevent the crisis spreading and to protect small savers, the AGD was actually set up to further the interests of proprietors and the large borrowers from private banks, especially the banks Filanbanco and FINAGRO. [6]
The financial crisis had disastrous consequences for all Ecuadorians. The AGD estimated the total cost of the crisis at 8,072 million dollars, or the equivalent of 83% of the general State budget in 2007, or the equivalent of twenty years of health insurance for the entire population. Those State resources, thus used and abused, could not be invested in education, health, job creation, etc. Worse still, the State had to contract more debt to finance the bank bail-outs! Poverty levels rose spectacularly, and 1 million Ecuadorians were forced to emigrate between 1999 and 2005 [7].
The World Bank’s responsibility in the Ecuadorian crisis is flagrantly obvious, in view of its active intervention to make the country’s government adopt the neoliberal reforms of the legal framework that led to the crisis of the late 1990s.
Financial deregulation causes the same devastating effects in the North as in the South
It is important to see the connection between the measures imposed on Ecuador, that led straight to the crisis of 1999, and the effects of the neoliberal policies also applied in the countries of the North, particularly the United States which has been through several financial crises: one in 2001 and another in 2007-2008. Deregulation to benefit the financial world, in the context of the Washington Consensus, which fulfilled the expectations of the White House and Wall Street (as was denounced repeatedly by Joseph Stiglitz, 2001 laureate of the Nobel prize for Economics), was imposed both in the North and the South, and has produced the same catastrophic effects.
This deregulation was a definitive break from the measures taken in the wake of the crises of 1929 and the 1930s in the United States. Let it be remembered that the crisis of last century had been preceded by a wave of deregulation and speculation. As a reaction, during F.D. Roosevelt’s presidency, came the banking law of 1933, known as the Glass-Steagall Act, which prohibited the simultaneous exercise of several financial professions and led to the complete separation of commercial and investment banks. In 1999, during the Clinton presidency, the law was abrogated under pressure from the big banks. Thus the same orientation has been applied in Ecuador and in the USA.
At the heart of the factors explaining the US subprimes housing crisis of 2007, can be found the radical banking deregulation that began in the 1980s and was completed under the Clinton Administration in the late 1990s, in a context of increasing speculation on the finance markets and the multiplication of financial derivative products and finance institutions that escape public control (such as hedge funds
Hedge funds
Unlisted investment funds that exist for purposes of speculation and that seek high returns, make liberal use of derivatives, especially options, and frequently make use of leverage. The main hedge funds are independent of banks, although banks frequently have their own hedge funds. Hedge funds come under the category of shadow banking.
[8] for example).
The World Bank has supported the national financial forces in Ecuador that consider themselves the masters of the country and who exploit the State and the government to reach their selfish ends
The World Bank has supported the national financial forces in Ecuador that consider themselves the masters of the country and who exploit the State and the government to reach their selfish ends. The World Bank has intervened to destabilize governments that have tried to apply social and economic policies aimed at bringing about more social justice and sovereignty to stand up to the United States.
Such was the case in 2005 when the World Bank intervened against measures taken by Rafael Correa, then Minister of the Economy in the government of President Alfredo Palacio (see below).
The structural adjustment loans granted by the World Bank
From the early 1990s, the World Bank awarded loans [9] in key economic and social sectors. The main axes were the reforms of the legal framework to reduce State intervention, privatization of public companies, increasing flexibility of the labour market, financial deregulation and liberalization.
The series of loans awarded by the World Bank – structural adjustment loans (3819-EC/BM- structural adjustment), debt reduction and modernization of the State (3820-EC ; 3821-EC- Technical assistance for the reform of public enterprises; 3822-0-EC-Technical assistance for the modernisation of the State) – were all conceived to reduce the State’s room for manœuvre, clear the way for private actors (especially in the telecommunications and electricity sectors) and ensure that Ecuador paid its debt to commercial creditors through the finance guarantees of the Brady Plan (see Box).
| The Brady Plan Throughout the 1980s, the Plan Brady (named for the US Secretary of the Treasury of the time) meant restructuration of the debt of the main indebted countries with exchange of old loans, incurring loss in terms of nominal value or interest, for new securities with longer maturity terms and repayment guaranteed by the international monetary authorities. Participant countries were Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Republic of Côte d’Ivoire, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Jordan, Mexico, Nigeria, Panama, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Uruguay, Venezuela and Vietnam. At the time, Nicholas Brady had announced that the volume of debt would be reduced by 30%. In fact, when there was any reduction, it was far less; in several significant cases debt even increased, see below). The new securities (Brady bonds) guaranteed a fixed interest rate of about 6%, which was highly favourable to the banks. This also ensured the pursuance of austerity policies under the control of the IMF and the World Bank. |
The World Bank granted loans to Ecuador so that the latter could align its fiscal and commercial policies to those required by neoliberal globalization and redirect its productive activities towards export, to the detriment of the local market. The first loan (3609-Private sector development) to promote these changes was disbursed in 1993, [10], followed in 1998 by a loan destined to support the export capacity of the private sector and remove obstacles to trade by instigating commercial policies in line with decisions made by the WTO and putting a signature to new trade agreements [11] (4346- External trade and integration- 21 million dollars).
By promoting the intensive production of commodities
Commodities
The goods exchanged on the commodities market, traditionally raw materials such as metals and fuels, and cereals.
destined for the export market (bananas, shrimp, flowers), these loans have had disastrous, and in some cases irreversible, environmental consequences. One striking example is shrimp farming, of which 90% of production is destined for export: it has led to the destruction of the mangrove forest biome (70% has been destroyed), a rich ecosystem from which local communities made their living, and forming a natural barrier against flooding and salinization of the soil. The activity has even been developed n zones where the law prohibited the construction of fish-farming pools.
To complete the ecological disaster, the World Bank has directly financed devastating projects in the domains of agriculture and management of natural resources (mineral and water resources, etc.). A good example would be [12] the PRODEMINCA project, in 1994, (3655-Technical assistance for environment) which included the introduction of a new Mining Code and reforms favourable to investors. Two laws (Trole I and II) created conditions facilitating the pillage of resources by multinationals by undermining the role of the Ministry of the Environment and permitting mining activities in protected areas.
To complete the ecological disaster, the World Bank has directly financed devastating projects in the domains of agriculture and the management of natural resources
The World Bank also elaborated a project regarding indigenous peoples (Loan 4277-O-EC- Development Project of the Indigenous and Black Peoples of Ecuador). The project aimed to favour private investments, reduce the role of the State and modify the legal framework. Not only is the country indebted, but the indigenous communities themselves are also indebted. The project attempted, perhaps even managed, to increase the dependence of indigenous and peasant communities on the seed, herbicides and pesticides supplied by transnational firms. This project had racist and discriminatory characteristics regarding indigenous peoples and Afro-descendants. Moreover, as was denounced by Ecuadorian social movements, it contained a hidden agenda aimed at weakening the powerful indigenous movement, especially the Confederation of Indigenous Nations of Ecuador.
These loans entailed many extremely negative consequences for the majority of the Ecuadorian population. Such was the particular case of the dramatic reduction of access to public services. Loan 3285 of 1991 for a sum of 104 million dollars to finance decentralization caused a reduction of the amounts awarded to territorial communities. The project enabled the IFI to have more control over the State budget and to bring pressure to bear, to increase the part destined for debt repayments. The conditions tied to Loan 3821 of 10 February 1995 also provided for the reduction of electricity subsidies and the future privatization of the State company INECEL.
In the same vein, public sector employees came under constant attack. The project Technical Assistance for the Modernization of the State led to a workforce reduction of 10,000 posts in the Civil Service. Redundancies represented a cost to the State of 396.3 million dollars [13]. Thus the government incurred another 20 million dollars for the project of restructuration of the public sector with the particular aim of reducing costs, and it cost them 20 times more in workforce reduction!
In parallel to that, Loan 7174 awarded in 2003 for structural adjustment and fiscal consolidation served to implement the emergency austerity decree made by President Gutierrez at the end of January 2003 with price-hikes of 21% for petrol and 3% for diesel. The measure brought an increase in transport costs and thus, more widely, in the general cost of living since goods have to be transported.
As for education, Loan 3425 “The first social development project in education and training” reduced funding in the education sector, bringing it from 18% of the budget before the loan, to 5.8 % by the year 2000. The difference, of course, was assigned to servicing the debt and to setting up policies favourable to creditors and the Ecuadorian ruling class.
These loans tied to conditionalities designed to introduce the aggressive antisocial policies of the Washington Consensus have brought about an increase of poverty and extreme poverty while increasing the concentration of wealth in the hands of an oligarchy. From 1970 to 2005, poverty significantly increased. In 1970, 40% of the population lived below the poverty threshold, and by 2005, this percentage had reached 61%. [14]. Impoverishment was particularly acute during the crisis of 1999. Between 1995 and 2000, the numbers of the poor rose from 3.9 million (i.e. 34% of the population) to 9.1 million (i.e. 71%) while extreme poverty doubled, affecting 31% of the population by 2000. Meanwhile, the rich became ever richer. In 1990, the richest 20% were taking 52% of the revenue; 10 years later, they were monopolizing 61% of the wealth [15]. Poverty particularly affects the inhabitants of rural areas and small farmers, hit by the opening up of markets, the increase in the cost of inputs, the instigation of a system of private land-owning, etc.
According to an FAO report (the UN Food and Agricultural Organization) dating back to 2003, poverty is responsible for problems of malnutrition observed in the country. Although there was enough food to cover the needs of the population, inequality of revenue meant that the poorest could not afford to eat properly.
This increase in poverty also has repercussions on access to healthcare and education. Job insecurity, increased unemployment, the spread of informal and precarious work and lower salaries mean that more and more children and adolescents are forced to drop out of the education system to help feed their families.
To help Ecuador “emerge” from its crisis, the World Bank brought its “solutions”: pursue and even reinforce the orientations that led to the crisis! (7024-0-EC- Structural adjustment, 7174-0-EC-Technical assistance for the modernization of the State, 4567-0 EC-Technical assistance in the financial sector).
The population took to the streets on a massive scale on several occasions to demonstrate their discontent, leading to the fall of several presidents during the 1990s and early 2000s, and confounding some of the World Bank’s objectives, in particular attempts at privatization. Three right-wing presidents were hounded out of office between 1997 and 2005 through mass mobilization of the population: Abdalá Bucaram in February 1997, Jamil Mahuad in January 2000 and Lucio Gutierrez in April 2005. It was the mobilizations of indigenous peoples that were decisive in leading to Abdalá Bucaram’s resignation in 1997 and Jamil Mahuad’s in 2000. In those mobilizations, the CONAIE (Confederation of Indigenous Nations of Ecuador – Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador) played a very important role. When Lucio Gutierrez stood down, it was mainly due to urban mobilizations. Among the many evident signs of opposition to neoliberal policies one might also add the failure of the 1995 referendum that had aimed notably to privatize the Social Security system. [16].
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