Views and Commentaries for 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998

The IMF Around the Globe
A Letter to the Editor
By Thomas C. Dawson
Director, External Relations, IMF

Time Magazine
May 15, 2000

Reproduced with permission of the Time Magazine

Sir:

Your story on the involvement of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Tanzania incorrectly suggested that IMF advice destroys social safety nets [WORLD, April 24]. For more than a decade, social spending has increased faster in poor countries with IMF programs than in those without; so has economic growth.

In Tanzania, school enrollment, far from falling a third since1993, has changed little. And the inflow of new aid, which far exceeds external debt service, is helping Tanzania boost its spending on essential social services. You asserted that the poor in Tanzania and in Africa generally were "hammered" by poor policy advice from the IMF. Not so. The reforms of recent years are helping farmers to sell their crops again, schools to have proper textbooks and hospitals to have the drugs they need.

Another of your stories, "Seattle Sequel" [Business, April 17], incorrectly stated that Angola has $12.2 billion in "IMF debt service." Angola has never borrowed from the IMF and hence owes nothing. The other three countries cited with "IMF debt service" of $54 billion - Vietnam, Sudan and the Ivory Coast—in fact owe the fund a total of $2.5 billion.