Representatives of the Nicaraguan civil society organization umbrella group
Civil Coordinator and Oxfam Spain have announced a six month campaign against
International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditions in Nicaragua. Civil society representatives
also travelled to Washington to lobby at the IMF’s spring meeting. They
took with them a letter to the director of the IMF, Rodrigo de Rato, asking
him to make the institution’s policies in Nicaragua more flexible so
that the country has a chance of achieving the United Nations Millennium Goals
of poverty reduction.
Adolfo Acedevo, member of the Civil Coordinator’s economic committee
said that the IMF conditions imposed on the Nicaraguan government have “grave”
affects on the population, 80% of whom live on less than US$2 a day and cannot
afford to pay for their children’s education or proper healthcare for
their family. Forty-one percent of Nicaraguans are under twenty years old
but only 30% of preschool age children and 30% of secondary school age teenagers
are able to attend school because their parents cannot pay for basic school
materials. Despite this, government spending on education has been reduced
in recent years as a result of IMF conditions. Acedevo went on to mention
the six month long health strike which he said was a result of the IMF’s
condition to freeze all public health sector pay raises at the rate of inflation.
Please send a message to the IMF Managing Director, Rodrigo Rato, demanding
that the International Monetary Fund put an end to the extremely harsh financial
conditions on the government of Nicaragua, which have serious effects on the
population of this country.
Here is a sample letter that you are urged to make your own, adding information
from your own experience in Nicaragua if you have visited recently.
SAMPLE LETTER
Mr. Rodrigo de Rato y Figaredo
Managing Director
International Monetary Fund
700 19th St. NW
Washington, DC 20431
Dear Mr. de Rato:
The United Nations “Millennium Declaration” has turned into the
cornerstone of the struggle against poverty and for development. However,
at the United Nations Conference held in New York in September 2005, a significant
delay in the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals was evidenced
by most countries. Nicaragua is one of the countries exemplifying this failure.
At the present time, 80 per cent of Nicaraguan people live on less than two
dollars a day. Besides, the net school enrolment rate has fallen from 85 to
80 per cent in the last three years, moving increasingly away from the achievement
of universal schooling. The Education Minister estimates that, provided current
trends are maintained and required resources fail to be allocated, the net
primary school enrolment rate will be reduced to 71 per cent by the year 2015,
a far cry from the 100 per cent that has been set as goal. We face such a
significant delay that urgent and imaginative measures are deemed extremely
necessary.
Nicaragua’s need for both internal and external resources in the next
years in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals is obvious. At
the present time, the country registers the lowest per capita social spending
levels in Latin America – US$68 – doubled by countries such as
Honduras and Bolivia. Therefore, it is surprising to learn that the IMF has
frozen spending on education and health at levels similar to the year 2000,
while it demands an increase in reserves and to give priority to public debt
payment. In these circumstances, the government itself has acknowledged that
“the additional demand for (social) services associated with population
growth will be hardly covered, which could be increasing the historical backwardness
in these sectors”. According to the UN Economic Commission on Latin
America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Nicaragua should increase its annual spending
on education by 8 per cent in order to be able to meet the goals on education;
the Ministry estimates that spending should be increased in the annual amount
of US$87.5 million.
Therefore, I urge the IMF to drop economic conditionalities that limit Nicaraguan
government spending on health and education. Unless this is done, Nicaragua
will fall further behind and will have no possibility of meeting the UN Millennium
Development Goals.
