LITTLE COMMON GROUND FOR GLOBALIZATION DEBATE.
The proposed debate next month, between four anti-globalization non-governmental organizations on one side and the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank on the other, may struggle even to find a common basis for discussion, writes Alan Beattie in the Financial Times (p.14). Mutual suspicion remains over sincerity of motives.
While the financial institutions have an established relationship and a regular meeting with well-known NGOs such as Oxfam and Friends of the Earth, some officials say the boundaries between respectable advocacy and violence can often be blurred, writes Beattie.
Assuming that the organizational problems can be overcome, could the fund and bank and their critics even find any common ground on which to base a debate? One of the problems is that they do not agree on the facts - and development economics is notorious for its patchy and unreliable data. They also tend to focus on different outcomes - as eloquently expounded by economist Ravi Kanbur. He says the opposing sides are often both right: liberalizing trade, for example, does in the long run increase growth and benefit all members of society, as the IMF and World Bank would tend to argue. But in the short term, the pain of transition can often hit the poor, as the anti-globalizers say. "There is a strong sense of people talking past each other," Kanbur says.
There are signs that the World Bank, at least, has made its message more nuanced and sophisticated, notes Beattie. Its forthcoming paper on globalization, growth and poverty does admit that billions of people are failing to benefit from globalization, and accepts that it has some adverse effects. But it got the standard hostile response from development campaigns when a copy was leaked. They called it "business as usual." The two sides may meet in the same building but their premises remain far apart.
Meanwhile, Reuters reports that the World Bank and the IMF said on Monday they believed talks with protest groups ahead of their annual meetings in Washington next month can help make programs more effective and improve dialogue with nongovernmental organizations.
The World Bank and IMF late last week sent a letter accepting requests from protesters to meet but the IMF said the agreement does not reflect a new initiative, notes the story. During IMF and World Bank meetings in Washington and in Prague last year, economists from both institutions held discussions with some 400 protesters and members of NGOs who had registered for the gatherings. "What comes out of these consultations is a process of dialogue through which policies can be amended and project effectiveness enhanced," World Bank spokeswoman Caroline Anstey told Reuters.
The two lenders, which have been criticized for a lack of openness, will host two days of online debates in the run-up to the meetings in addition to exchanges with protesters, adds the story. Anstey said the online debates will take place on Sept. 27-28, and will focus on globalization and its impact on the environment, decision-making, corruption and culture.
The online forum, open to questions and comments from anybody with access to the Internet, will bring together officials from the bank and the IMF as well as NGOs, ministers from around the world, representatives of the private sector and academics, Anstey said.
In a separate report, Reuters writes that lawyers for anti-globalization activists filed a lawsuit against the Washington police department on Monday, arguing that planned measures to contain demonstrations during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings were unconstitutional.