The context

Today's core missions of the Washington-based IMF and World Bank, which were created in the wake of World War II, are to regulate the international monetary system and lend money to developing countries.

As many countries had difficulty repaying their debts, rich countries imposed, in the early 80's, structural adjustment policies that set the rules of the game for millions of people.

International financial institution officials were granted the power to impose on the most debt-ridden countries' governments a policy supposed to balance their budgets.

Most Sub-Saharan African countries are under structural adjustment programmes these days.

These programmes based on neoliberal principles serve rich countries' vested interests - essentially those of the United States and of Europe.

The reforms imposed on Southern countries have always been the same while, paradoxically enough, they are far from being implemented in Northern countries : suppression of State subsidies (in agriculture, textiles...), dismantlement of public services and job cuts in the public sector (school teachers, doctors...).

In debt-ridden countries, the privatization of State-owned firms which managed natural resources, water, electricity, transport and telecommunications has always been carried out in the interest of rich countries' multinationals. The contracts - signed against a background of corruption and political pressure - have always benefited these multinationals.

At the same time, the populations under structural adjustment have grown poorer and poorer, their life expectancy has declined, their child mortality has risen and their literacy rate has dropped.

Most official reports indicate that the Very Indebted Poor Countries are poorer today than they were twenty years ago.

However, if we take into account the total capital flow and wealth transfer, African countries have more than repaid their debts to rich countries. Many of them have had to relinquish everything they owned and can no longer secure their future development.

A long overdue debt relief seems now to be deceiving.

Abderrahmane Sissako