Thursday 21 January 2010
 
For media interviews contact:
Soren Ambrose
ActionAid's Development Finance Coordinator in Kenya
Tel: +254 (20) 444 0440/4/9
Mobile: +254 723 151 541;
Skype: soren.ambrose
soren.ambrose@actionaid.org
 
The IMF has bowed to pressure from activists and the media to convert their $100m emergency loan into a grant, removing all conditionality. Analysis by ActionAid played a key role in the IMF changing course in a matter of days.
 
Two days after the earthquake struck Haiti, the IMF and World Bank announced that each of them would rush $100 million in assistance. The difference between the two was that the World Bank would be giving grants, while the IMF’s money would be a loan under Haiti’s existing IMF program.
 
Debt and development activists reacted immediately: a new loan for Haiti, especially one with conditions, was grossly inappropriate given the devastation in Port-au-Prince.
 
ActionAid prepared a factsheet listing the conditions of Haiti’s IMF program. We pointed out that the funds should come from the IMF’s new Rapid Credit Facility, which applies minimal or no conditions to its loans. Jubilee USA Network crafted a recommendation that the IMF guarantee that the debt would be paid by donors.
 
Our factsheet and Jubilee USA’s press release wound up in the hands of an editor at The Nation magazine, who posted a blog summarizing the absurdity of lending to Haiti with conditions. That inspired a Facebook group called "No Shock Doctrine for Haiti" – a reference to Naomi Klein’s book on how international financial institutions and wealthy governments exploit catastrophes to impose new economic rules on vulnerable countries. It quickly attracted over 18,000 members.
 
Yesterday (Wednesday, January 20), the IMF put out a release quoting its head, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, saying that it would find a way to make sure Haiti didn’t have to pay the $100 million. An IMF spokesman also declared that this loan would be free of any conditions.
 
Neither of those pledges is yet absolutely official, but we have their word.
 
ENDS
 
Notes to Editors
 
For articles by Naomi Klein & Richard Kim of The Nation on this victory, see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-klein/haiti-small-victory-for-s_b_430614.html. For the IMF press release, see http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2010/NEW012010A.htm.