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Civil society in Kenya has urged the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to give greater African representation within its decision making boards and the formation of a dispute resolution body.
Africans are under-represented at the decision-making level of the IMF: Africa counts three executive directors on the IMF board with only 3 percent of contributing votes. In comparison, the executive directors of the United States have just over 16 percent of the votes. This is despite the fact that Africa represents a quarter of IMF membership and accounts for the bulk of the IMF's operations. Peter Ganuku, the former executive director of the IMF's Africa Group One, a constituency representing 21 English-speaking African countries on the board of the IMF, called for greater representation of African countries on the board of the IMF as well as among IMF staff. He also advocated the need for greater transparency in the lending conditions: "There should be a more consultative way of reaching a framework. At the moment conditions for lending are discussed with the treasuries of countries without the wider consultation of the public and there sometimes may be some intimidation and thumb-twisting that takes place". At the same time, New Rules for Global Finance, a coalition of development, human rights, labour, environmental and religious organisations dedicated to the reform of global financial structures, has conducted dialogue with various civil society organisations across the globe as part of a process to draft civil society recommendations on IMF governance reform. Among its recommendations, there is a consensus among civil society organisations on the need to change the nature and the scope of conditionalities, which are seen to have contributed to the financial crisis. Transparency is also a major concern and the coalition urges that all documents of the IMF be made public. Finally, they push for the creation of an external dispute resolution body for the IMF which should contribute to the better design of programmes by the IMF, drawing on lessons learned. Source: |
