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The first official meeting of Mr. Wolfowitz with Civil Society Organizations took place on Thursday, September 22, within the framework of the Annual Meetings. Ahead of the meeting, the different organizations taking part carried out several workshops aimed at preparing a common strategy, although the results were not conclusive.

WOLFOWITZ'S MEETING WITH CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS BROUGHT NO SIGNIFICANT PROGRESS

September 26, 2005

The first official meeting of Mr. Wolfowitz with Civil Society Organizations took place on Thursday, September 22, within the framework of the Annual Meetings. Ahead of the meeting, the different organizations taking part carried out several workshops aimed at preparing a common strategy, although the results were not conclusive.

The meeting of social organizations with Paul Wolfowitz, World Bank President, Rodrigo de Rato, IMF Managing Director and Trevor Manuel, Finance Minister and Development Committee Chair (World Bank) was only an update on the relationship of the World Bank with civil society representatives.

In his intervention, Wolfowitz highlighted the task of his predecessor as the president that opened dialogue between the institution and these organizations. He stressed the importance of this event and laid emphasis on the role played by social organizations as engines of growth and actors capable of giving voice and expression to the different peoples as well as enabling the many times necessary accountability.

He referred to a chain of accountability from the World Bank to organizations and from these to civil society. According to Wolfowitz, social organizations monitor the activity of multilateral institutions and disclose their failures, therefore he considered their opinion as very important.

Trevor Manuel referred to a crisis in the fulfilment of the goal of poverty elimination, since another state of affairs was to be expected for this year. He also highlighted the importance of the Annual Meeting on account of its proximity to the United Nations Summit in New York and to the Ministerial Round in Hong Kong (DOHA). As he stated, the UN Summit brought few results for developing countries in terms of the achievement of MDGs and he stressed the need to focus work on the fulfilment of each promise made.

Rato highlighted the IMF work with low income countries and proposed once again a review to reform the quota system within the Fund. As he pointed out, the final goal is to provide the institution with increased effectiveness and legitimacy.

Following the above presentations, Wolfowitz monopolized the attention of civil society representatives who posed different questions about the task of the World Bank and IMF.It is worth pointing out that these interventions were the result of long debates on a common strategy of organizations with a view to this event. The most radical proposals put forward included not attending the meeting or attending it while displaying placards referring to the lack of legitimacy of Wolfowitz as World Bank President. However, the debate concluded by leaving participants free to express their concerns in the tone they deemed more appropriate.

In this sense, the questions put forward laid special emphasis on the role played by the World Bank in Haiti, the financing of infrastructure projects in Central America, the mining problem in Guatemala, the role played by multilateral agencies in Iraq’s reconstruction and the financing granted by the World Bank to the different African countries. The implementation of the G8 debt cancellation promise also was a central issue in the dialogue and upon this concern Rato ratified that it is currently being analysed by technicians and within the next weeks a definite strategy will be presented.

To sum up, the answers provided by the board members of these institutions to the concerns put forward by the attending organizations were not conclusive at all. At each intervention, Wolfowitz described the way in which the Bank implements its programmes and stated unawareness upon some specific remarks.

In this way, the long-awaited meeting came to an end without further definitions. As for civil society, nothing remains but to acknowledge the work that lays ahead for each specific case.

World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings - September 2005 At the 2005 Annual Meetings, the Boards of Governors will decide on major international monetary issues. Civil society organizations are preparing seminars and workshops surrounding the Annual Meetings with special focus on conditionalities, debt, development financing and the Millennium Development Goals.

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