collected snippets of immediate importance...


Sunday, May 20, 2007

europe at the world bank:
For far too long European governments have supported policies at the Bank that their domestic constituencies wouldn't tolerate for one second if a foreign bureaucracy imposed them at home. Would social democrats in Denmark tolerate that the World Bank impose on them "education reforms" like the school fees that have blocked access to primary education in Africa? Would Labor Party activists in Britain tolerate that the World Bank impose on them "health sector reforms" like clinic fees blocking access to prenatal care? Would European social democrats have tolerated that the World Bank impose on them the corrupt privatization of the water utility in Bolivia, the corrupt privatization of public pensions in Chile and Argentina, the destruction of Mozambique's cashew nut processing industry, the "labor sector reforms" that undermined the right to organize?

No comments: