24 August 2001 

 Voices from the South: SAPRIN Global Forum on
the Failure of World Bank/IMF Economic Adjustment Policies
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Civil-Society Leaders from 10 Countries Present Joint Assessment of
World Bank-Prescribed Measures
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Bank Management Attempts to Ignore Findings Despite Growing Street Protests

Thirty representatives of civil-society networks in ten developing and transitional countries will be in Washington in late September to present the results of a four-year joint field assessment of Bank-supported adjustment programs and to discuss new directions for policy change.  Based on extensive citizen mobilization and analysis on four continents, speakers will discuss the on-the-ground impact of trade and financial-sector liberalization, privatization, labor-market and public-expenditure reform, and agricultural and mining-sector reform on important sectors of the economy and large segments of the population, including workers, farmers, small businesses and the poor and disadvantaged. The two-day forum is sponsored by the Structural Adjustment Participatory Review International Network (SAPRIN), a global civil-society network headquartered in Washington, DC.

World Bank senior management, led by president Jim Wolfensohn, engaged critics in this broad consultative initiative to gain access to a broad range of civil-society voices traditionally excluded from the policymaking process. Wolfensohn's proclaimed purpose was to identify changes in policy that would improve the lives of ordinary citizens. In the end, however, the Bank has been unwilling to embrace the findings from the field investigations, much less make any significant policy shifts. In so doing, the Bank has contradicted its president's claims that, as an alternative to street protests and violence, he prefers meaningful dialogue with civil society, particularly groups from the South.

Wolfensohn, who, along with other senior Bank managers, was conspicuously absent from a preliminary review of findings at the Bank in late July, will be invited to the Forum to explain the Bank's plans for translating into action the results from this joint project that he helped launch. The event also will involve representatives from other social movements and official institutions with which alliances have been built over the course of this unprecedented consultative process.

The forum is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Stephanie Weinberg at
The Development GAP, 202-898-1566, sweinberg@developmentgap.org. 

RSVPs appreciated: rsvp@saprin.org

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