[PEN-L:6075] IMF death toll

[Robert Naiman <naimanr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

UNDP in 1997 estimated 21 million lives could be saved by 2000 by debt
cancellation in the poorest countries. Since that didn't happen and the IMF
(aka US Treasury) is chiefly to blame, you could count 21 million deaths.
Now go back to 1982, and add the other countries, and consider the effects
of structural adjustment in addition to debt, and add in the Bank.

A number of the organizations campaiging on debt have tried to make
estimates of the death toll of debt. Jubilee 2000 estimated that if
Mozambique were allowed to spend half the money on education and health
care that it is now spending on debt service it could save the lives of
115,000 kids a year. In 1997 Oxfam said debt relief in Mozambique could
save the lives of 600,000 children over seven years, etc. And that doesn't
capture other effects of structural adjustment, like raising fees on health
care that prevent access to the poor.

I think former IMF economist Davison Budoo(sp?) once estimated 6 million
dead a year since 1982 due to IMF policies.

Incidentally, the above numbers are cited in

Robert Naiman and Neil Watkins
A Survey of the Impacts of IMF Structural Adjustment in Africa:
Growth, Social Spending, and Debt Relief
Preamble Center
April 1999
http://www.preamble.org/IMFinAfrica.htm

At 08:17 AM 4/27/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Sort of a Query.
>
>In conversation at various times I have introduced the probably quite
>outlandishly extravagant proposition that the greatest mass murderer
>of the 20th century is the IMF/World Bank. And usually, either
>surprisingly or not surprisingly, I have gotten at least murmurs of "You
>
>could be right."
>
>Could that observation be in any way rationally supported as a valid
>proposition?
>
>This is a real not a rhetorical question. I assume tht most on this list
>are IMF
>haters. I'm just curious as to how strong an expression we can
>legitimately
>give our hatred.
>
>Carrol

-------------------------------
Robert Naiman <naimanr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Preamble Center
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