World Bank/IMF: Fifty Years Is Enough

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund together have more power to influence development in the Third World than do any other institutions on the planet. For the last fifty years, tens of billions of dollars have been loaned to the poorest nations with the ostensible purpose of improving their quality of life. The net result, in most cases, has been disastrous. World Bank and IMF practices often usurp local development priorities. Staggering levels of debt burden countries that are already poor. The gulf between the privileged few and those clinging to survival has widened. World Bank projects and IMF-imposed structural adjustment programs displace millions of people and devastate the environment.

Lecture followed by interview by David Barsamian.

Recorded at the University of Colorado.