Gathered until Thursday, the least developed countries are calling for a complete overhaul of the global economic model inherited from the Bretton Woods agreements in 1944.
Unsuited to poor countries, tool of domination by the North over the South: the international financial system and multilateral aid, inherited from the post-war period, is directly challenged at the summit of the least developed countries (LDCs) of Doha.
Meeting since Saturday and until Thursday in Qatar, the 46 poorest countries in the world, 33 of which are African, are calling for a complete revision of the global economic model inherited from the Bretton Woods agreements in 1944, creators in particular of the International Monetary Fund (IMF ).
The LDC category was supposed to allow its members to benefit from privileges in terms of trade and various aid and financing. But the 24 countries so designated in 1971 have since doubled in number.
They are today the first victims of global warming, are overwhelmed by the inflation of food and energy products following the war in Ukraine and are crumbling under debts of which they are struggling to pay even the interest.
And for many heads of state and government present in Qatar under the aegis of the United Nations, the system that governs aid from north to south is responsible for locking them into poverty.
“Now is the time for the 12 international organizations like the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the multilateral development banks to stop using GDP per capita as the sole measure of development,” Wavel said. Ramkalawan, President of Seychelles, one of the few LDCs to have managed to leave the category.
“By and for the rich”
“One size doesn’t work! We must recognize the needs of countries with unique vulnerabilities,” added the head of state of this tiny island country.
The President of East Timor for his part accused the North of blaming the South for the failure of its choices. “Our partners tend to blame the recipient for failures, rather than looking at their own aid programs,” said Jose Ramos-Horta.
The Covid-19 crisis is regularly cited as an example: the poorest countries, quickly overwhelmed by the pandemic, were first weaned from vaccines before having to borrow once more to manage the crisis.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres asserted in his opening speech: “The deeply skewed global financial system – designed by rich countries to benefit rich countries – offers LDCs the most unfair treatment.”
The major institutions are thus singled out, the World Bank and the IMF in the lead, accused of imposing austerity and budgetary orthodoxy in the name of logics to which poor countries can only submit.
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) revealed it at the end of February: 52 countries are either over-indebted or on the verge of over-indebtedness and potentially in default.
“Relief, restructuring, cancellation”
Hence this observation by the Deputy Prime Minister of Lesotho, Nthomeng Majara: “the weight of the debt and the interest are becoming an increasingly great challenge for the LDCs (…). There is an urgent need for debt relief, restructuring and cancellation.”
But by exploding in volume, the debt has become a godsend. China has become the first country to hold it, but it remains well below multilateral institutions and private actors.
In parallel to the official interventions, a few dozen civil society activists were debating the same issues in Doha.
The system “promotes market-led solutions to solve public policy problems and history has taught us that this does not work”, assures AFP Jason Rosario Braganza, Kenyan economist and executive director of the NGO Afrodad. .
“We have to try to make multilateralism relevant once more,” agrees Marina Durano, member of the international union UNI. “We all know how unfair the situation is.”
Lidy Nacpil, a Filipino debt activist, denounces those who “use lending and debt relief to impose policies.”
A reform, for her, is no longer even possible. Everything has to be redesigned and rebuilt. “It is high time to put an end to the Bretton Woods institutions.”