|
No Seattle repeat after all
|
 |
April 17, 2000: 2:56 p.m. ET
IMF-World Bank meetings begin and end with barely a whiff of tear gas
By Staff Writer M. Corey Goldman
|
WASHINGTON (CNNfn) - It wasn't Seattle, but it came pretty close.
Unlike the World Trade Organization meetings in the other Washington last year that ended in disruption, chaos and clouds of tear gas, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings forged ahead, despite the best efforts of protesters to shut them down.
In fact, officials of the two global lending powerhouses were so determined to stick to their agendas and finish their meetings that IMF and bank staff had seriously considered foiling the thousands of demonstrators outside by wrapping up the entire event a day ahead of time. World Bank officials foiled demonstrators once again Monday by holding their meeting two hours ahead of schedule, beginning at 6:30 a.m. ET.
Violent it was not. With the exception of a few skirmishes here and there and the sparse use of pepper spray, smoke and tear gas, Washington police and the U.S. Secret Service ensured that the city, barricaded within an 11-by-7 block area east and west of the White House, remained calm and orderly.
Inside, delegates and ministers gathering to discuss the game plan for the IMF and World Bank over the next six months went about their business with surprisingly little disruption. Oh sure, they told war stories about being caught on the "outside" and having to catch police-escorted shuttle buses to get into the D.M.Z., but otherwise it was business as usual in the complex.
So what was the story?
The financial media, too, dressed in suits and ties remarkably similar to delegates and unfamiliar with such nasty things as chanting and drums at these events, had their own war stories to tell, mostly about getting into the building rather than about violence or disruption on the other side of the lines manned by riot-geared police, the metal barricades, and the arm-linked protestors who literally blocked off every possible way to enter the compound.
So what was the story here?
 Obviously it was the demonstrations, judging by the number of people who turned up in Washington Sunday to protest the two organizations they see as pillagers of the developing world. That was confirmed by the amount of media coverage paid to the throngs of protestors that took over downtown Washington for two days straight and gave federal employees and others who work in the downtown core an extra day off Monday.
On the inside, it would seem, the protests did little to disrupt the meetings. Most senior officials and ministers barely acknowledged the melee outside their doors, only to suggest that the objectives of many of the activists and the objectives of the IMF and World Bank were one and the same.
But sticks and stones can break bones, and names do occasionally sting, according to insiders. Indeed, the action outside brought out some issues that, for years, have gone unnoticed by the IMF and World Bank -- issues of accountability, of being open and clear about roles and policies, and of conveying a clear message to the biggest donors of funds of all -- the people.
IDA, HPIC, IMFC, PRSP...
"The protests have drawn attention to the World Bank and to the IMF, but in a way, it's made us take a really good look in the mirror to see what we can't improve on," Gary Perlin, the World Bank's chief financial officer, told CNNfn.com late last week. "Institutions as large as the IMF and World Bank, due to their sheer size, can lose sight of their objectives, even though the basic fundamental goal of everyone here, I think, is to help people in need."
 Many staffers at the fund and the bank hadn't really ever considered, until these meetings, that there might just be a little too much bureaucracy, just a few too many acronyms, just a few too many committees and communiqués and statements and briefings and political infighting inside two organizations bent on eliminating poverty and improving the world economy.
At the same time, there are very few at the IMF or the World Bank who can honestly say, with absolute conviction, that they are aware of what each section, division, department and committee of the two institutions does.
"It's true, I don't even know what half of those acronyms stand for, or what a lot of those committees do," admitted one staffer, who asked not to be identified. "Both the IMF and World Bank are extremely large institutions with good causes, but like any big organization, politics and bureaucracy can sometimes become more of a focus than it should be."
Perhaps a little more clarity?
For their part, both the IMF and World Bank think they are doing the world a great justice - by promoting global economic cooperation, by encouraging more active trade between countries and by reducing debt levels to give nations a chance to develop programs such as health care, education and worker training. They are helping the world by making sure that all countries are on the up and up, they say, to make sure that no nation suffers through another economic collapse that hurts everyone's pocketbook.
But do they need to be that big, that institutional, that bureaucratic?
So what will this revelation among insiders at the IMF and World Bank accomplish? Already, senior officials at the sister organizations and the finance ministers they report to have suggested internal reforms to streamline each agency's operations and become more transparent to the public.
And it may also lead to even more openness with the public -- not necessarily in the kind of information they hand out, which is readily available to anyone who has access to either organization's Web site, but in the method and language they use to explain what they're up to and why.
"A lot of the officials really believe that if you're going to be more transparent you have to spell it out in plain language that everyone understands," the staffer said. "Even if they detail everything they're up to, much of which is already public right now, people still don't understand it because it's in this political-speak that people inside the fund and the bank are so used to." 
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
