BREAKING THE BANK’S BONDS
WORLD BANK BOYCOTT

To get the World Bank out of the global community,
we must first get our own communities out of the World Bank!

The World Bank Boycott is an international initiative, which aims to put an end to socially and environmentally destructive World Bank policies and projects, through grassroots financial pressure.

Aiming to tackle the structural causes of environmental damage and social inequality, the Boycott targets the Achilles’ Heel of one of the main proponents of the neo-liberal economic model, the World Bank. The Bank raises 80% of its money by selling bonds on private capital markets; many of these are held by everyday people and can be found in our pension funds, mutual funds, life insurance schemes, university endowments, churches, local governments, and trade unions. The more such institutions turn away from investing in World Bank bonds, the more the Bank’s principle source of income is jeopardised. Collectively we have the power to stop the World Bank in its tracks just by making simple choices about where we put our money.

Since its was launched in April 2000, by groups from Haiti, South Africa, Ecuador and the U.S., over 85 institutional investors have joined the Boycott. The longer the list of objectors grows, the less safe an investment the bonds become, and the more the World Bank begins to get nervous, and financial market analysts to sit up and take note. Everybody is capable of effectively intensifying the pressure on the Bank, therefore, simply by speaking out in the community, forming local coalitions, or just asking basic questions about where their money ends up.


Demands of the World Bank Boycott

1. An end to structural adjustment and related policies of privatisation and austerity;
2. 100% debt cancellation for impoverished nations and illegitimate debt;
3. An end to World Bank support for environmentally destructive projects, especially oil, gas, mining, and dam projects.


If you would like to get involved in the Boycott or have general questions about the campaign or the World Bank, then please contact us at  wbboycott@aseed.antenna.nl. Alternatively, you can find more detailed information about the Boycott, including a full list of institutions that have joined at www.worldbankboycott.org or www.wbbeurope.org.

What’s Wrong With the Bank?

“Their [IMF and World Bank] policies have not only failed to bridge the gap between rich and poor and achieve greater equality, but have rather contributed to a widening gap, the virtual exclusion of an increasing number of the poor, and widespread social disintegration”.
– Rev Dr Konrad Raiser, World Council of Churches, June 2000

§ The World Bank refuses to cancel 100% of the debts of poor countries, even though those countries have paid back the original debt many times over.

§ For every $1 given in aid to impoverished countries, $1.30 flows back in debt service payments. Approximately $200 million is paid out of Africa in debt repayments per week.

§ In Zambia, where 20% of the population is HIV positive, the government spends only $17 per person on healthcare, while spending $30 per person on debt service.

§ In Niger, where the government must spend more on its debt than on education and health combined, less than 20% of young women are in schools.

§ The World Bank itself acknowledged in preliminary research by Lindberg and Squire that, as a result of the neo-liberal economic policies it promotes, the lowest 40% in a developing country stands to lose.

§ For every $1 the U.S. government donates to the World Bank, U.S. corporations get $3 back in trade contracts.

§ Through World Bank and IMF loan conditions, communities are forced into growing food for export rather than for local sustenance. Currently 80% of malnourished children in developing worlds live where farmers have been required to grow export crops like Brazil nuts, mangoes, or coffee, rather than food for their communities.

§ The fossil fuel projects from 1992 to 1998 that were financed by the World Bank, will ultimately release 37.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide. This amount is greater than all current annual global fossil fuel emissions.

§ Between 1992-2002, the World Bank’s financing of fossil fuel projects surpassed its investment in renewables by a ratio of 18:1.

ARE YOU HELPING TO FUND THIS?

“No socially responsible investor would touch World Bank bonds with a ten-foot pole”
- Trillium Assets Management, April 2000

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE WORLD BANK:
www.brettonwoodsproject.org
www.whirledbank.org
www.50years.org