The World Bank and the IMF (the International Monetary Fund) were set
up during the end of the Second World War to rebuild the economies of
Europe. However, in order for the world bank and the IMF to implement
their policies, they (the world bank and the IMF) began offering loans
to poor countries but only if the poor countries privatized their
economies and allowed western corporations free access to their raw
materials and markets. That was a poverty trap and many poor countries
realized it when it was too late. We were already in chains.
That was the beginning of much of the problems we face today in
Africa. Now we are in a vicious cycle of poverty and there seems to be
no way out. The western corporations flourish while the poor continue
to die in poverty. In other words, the poor in Africa continue to feed
the greedy rich corporations in the western world. The poor get poorer
while the rich get richer. People continue to die from extreme poverty
and hunger in Africa and other parts of the world but not so many people
know the World Bank, The IMF and the WTO are behind almost all these.
It is a new form of war whereby the rich western corporations use hunger
and deaths as weapons of mass destruction. In other words, The World
Bank, The IMF (the International Monetary Fund), and the WTO (the World
Trade Organization) are the triple enemies of progress in almost every
developing country in the world. Now let's see how the World Bank, IMF
and WTO operate in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Take a country like Ghana for example. Ghana is blessed with
abundance of natural resources. The World Bank and the IMF are very
interested in countries such as Ghana where they can easily control the
natural resources and the markets. There used to be some prosperous rice
farming communities in the northern parts of Ghana and the government
of Ghana used to give those rice producing farmers some farming
subsidies to enable them produce rice on a large scale to help feed the
nation. However, the world bank and the IMF stood in and told the
Ghanaian government they (the world bank and the IMF) would not give
Ghana any more loans unless the Ghanaian government cut the farming
subsidies the government was giving to the poor rice farmers and the
main reason behind it was that, Ghana had to import rice from western
countries such as the United States (a major partner of the world bank
and the IMF). Now Ghana imports most of its rice from abroad at huge
prices every year. So at the end of the day, Ghana owes the World Bank
and the IMF huge amounts of money but the money did not remain in the
Ghanaian economy because Ghana had to use the loan to import food from
abroad. Meanwhile, the rice producing communities in Ghana could have
helped produce enough rice to feed the nation and even export some
abroad to make more profit. Now the northern communities in Ghana remain
the poorest in the country with no better jobs and no opportunities at
all in most parts. Young boys and girls some as young as 9 are migrating
to the southern parts of the country to major cities such as Kumasi and
Accra (a very dangerous journey for kids) all in search for jobs so
they can take care of their poor dying families back home. Most of these
kids never return home. Some die along the way and some return worse
than before and all thanks to the IMF and the World Bank.
Although the money was returned to them, we still owe them. That is
why most developing countries owe the World Bank and the IMF a lot in
loans. Sometimes you hear "debt cancellations" and you may think they
forgive poor countries their debts but that is not how it works in
reality. The World Bank and the IMF never forgive and because of the
huge debts developing countries owe the World Bank, they (the World
Bank, The International Monetary Fund or the IMF, The World Trade
Organization or WTO, and The United States of America a major partner of
the World Bank) control almost all the affairs of those poor countries.
In other words, if you don't obey what the World Bank and the IMF say
then you must pay back the debt and because you cannot pay back the
debt, you must obey whatever they tell you to do. Any leader who doesn't
obey the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO, etc. is considered a "terrorist"
and must be assassinated in most cases. For example, when there is an
oil discovery in a developing country (that owes the World Bank) and the
leader of that developing country is not ready to co-operate (so
western corporations can easily take over the oil exploration), the
World Bank and co quickly get rid of such a leader sometimes through war
(just like what happened in Iraq). The World Bank elects their own
"obedient" leaders to rule those poor countries so that they (the World
Bank, IMF and co) can easily control that country's economy and market.
Africason is a die-hard believer in Africa.
Twitter: @african_school
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