71 youth- and student-led organisations from over 30 countries have issued an urgent letter to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) ahead of the Bank-IMF Development Committee meeting taking place in Washington DC on 12th April 2023.
The Development Committee, made up of Ministers of Finance or Development from 25 countries, has a mandate to advise the IMF on development issues and young people around the world are calling for them to urgently address the shocking discrimination Africa faces within the fund and introduce policies that supports, not undermines, education financing on the continent.
Since 2015 international injustices have cost Africa $3.8 trillion dollars despite global wealth growing by over $11 trillion in the same time period. The IMF has played a large role in facilitating this staggering global inequality which has been catastrophic for the rights of the most marginalised children and young people. Over 10,000 African children have been forced into child labour every day since 2016, and the number of children out of school has increased by over 10 million in Africa.
Instead of promoting public spending on education, the IMF’s continued imposition of extreme austerity measures in developing African countries, which their own research has repeatedly proved does not work, and unequal allocation of global financial resources at their disposal, has significantly undermined efforts to achieve education for all.
These discriminatory policies mandated by the IMF are unsurprising when their own power structures are unjust against Africa. Currently, the United States alone has three times more votes than all African countries, and the UK and Belgium have more IMF votes than all countries in sub-Saharan Africa put together. This unjust representation of Africa is replicated in many other global decision-making fora such as the G7, G20 and OECD and allows the richest countries to continue making the rules the poorest must live by.
Youth activists, student leaders and child labour survivor-advocates from across the world strongly believe that the IMF must take immediate action to address this devastating inequality and use their global power to support education financing in Africa.
