Tell the IMF to drop harmful economic conditions! 

May 2006

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.

Sincerely,

[YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS]

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