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Immediate move needed: Friends of Earth

IMF policies seen wrecking havoc on eco-system
WASHINGTON. Mar 12: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) needs to take immediate action to reverse the ecological harm its policies and programmes have wreaked in developing countries, according to a new report from a leading environmental group, says IPS.
"The current model of economic development that Is being pursued by the IMF (and other international financial institutions) is fundamentally unsustainable, as it seeks growth at all costs without regard to ecological limits," says the report by Friends of the Earth.
The document, titled the IMF: Selling the Environment Short" and written by an International team of veteran environmentalists and economists, examines the IMF's impact In eight borrowing countries and concludes with recommendations to 'green' the agency's operations while restricting Its । mandate.
The report's Tuesday release coincides with the much-anticipated publication Wednesday I of recommendations by the In-
ternational Financial Institutions Advisory Commission, which is to report to Congress on the operations of the IMF. World Bank, and regional development banks.
Commission members already have said they will urge that the IMF be removed from long-rang development planning and. inste id. be confined to making short-term loans to countries sin financial trouble.
That recommendation is at the top of the Friends of the Earth wish list. too. So long as the IMF remains in the business of structural adjustment, however, the group also wants the Fund to.
Include borrowing countries' environment ministers and civil society groups in negotiating loan programmes and make-sure the resulting agreements hamper neither the making nor-enforcement of local environmental protection laws.
Determine and publish the likely environmental Impacts of its macroeconomic policy prescriptions: and establish an independent evaluation unit to assess IMF policies and pro-
grammes and Improve the agency's accountability.
The IMF could Improve its environmental performance by adding environmental accounting to its work of gathering data on the macroeconomic health of member states.
It also urges the Fund to drop Its preference for regressive value-added taxes in favour of "green taxes' these" could be used as a mechanism for countries to promote environmental goals by providing incentives lor manufacturers to change production practices ... encouraging more efficient energy and resource use, and preventing environmental contamination and degradation".
"There Is a new acceptance that polices must be geared first and foremost toward poverty reduction," the authors acknowledge. The environment, however, remains "a major missing element".
Rather, they say. the IMF and World Bank generally assume that policies designed to promote economic stability also will ensure sustainable development.