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    Feminists Reject International Monetary Fund’s Strategy Toward Mainstreaming Gender #NotInOurName

    To: 

    Kristalina Georgieva, IMF Managing Director,

    Gita Gopinath, IMF’s First Deputy Managing Director,

    Ratna Sahay, IMF’s Senior Advisor on Gender in the Office of the Managing Director, 

     

    Dear Ms. Georgieva, Ms. Gopinath, Ms. Sahay,

     

    We write to you on behalf of the undersigned feminist organizations, networks and individuals, with key concerns about the new IMF Strategy Toward Mainstreaming Gender. The concerns lie both in its content as well as in its stated plans of implementation. These are linked to wider structural macroeconomic concerns about the IMF’s mandate, history of fiscal consolidation and structural adjustment, as well as its influence over developing country governments and larger influences in the Global Financial Architecture. These concerns are the reasons why we reject this gender strategy in very strong terms.

    First, the IMF has a historical record of refusing to abide by the human rights framework enshrined in the UN Charter and international human rights law, despite its member states being legally bound by these obligations. The IMF itself was founded under the auspices of the UN at the United Nations Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, and - as a specialized agency of the UN - it has legal responsibility to act in conformity with the UN Charter and international law, including human rights law. Several UN Human Rights Rapporteurs highlighted the problematic nature of an IMF’s gender strategy that does not acknowledge the interrelatedness and indivisibility of all human rights. Rather, the strategy promotes a liberal interpretation of the concept of gender to impose a commodification of the gender equality agenda and the financialization of the lives of women who live in precarious conditions due to the IMF's policy framework. We, as organisations aligned with feminist principles, say: not in our name.

    Second, the IMF’s instrumentalist approach to gender in this strategy is characterized by a narrow focus on women’s labour force participation to the extent that economic growth is served. This fails to recognize the validity and priority of gender equality, regardless of its quantitative impact on economic growth indicators, as measured by GDP indices. Importantly, an instrumental approach to gender for the objective of growth circumvents critical challenges related to the IMF’s fiscal consolidation frameworks contained in IMF loan facilities as well as Article IV surveillance reports. Fiscal, monetary and structural policy recommendations and assessments have a 40-year history of an austerity bias, with empirically documented negative effects on women’s economic and social rights, livelihoods, and well-being. As such, the Fund has an adverse impact on the feminization of poverty and multidimensional inequalities, and strategies for economic development have not benefited women. For example, the ability of national governments to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and fulfill their human rights obligations is systematically undermined through the prioritisation of external debt payment in the interest of international creditors, while marginalised communities and particularly women bear the brunt of the resulting adjustments and austerity measures. The IMF’s emphasis on “economic growth” in itself as the main priority in advising governments has proven to be obsolete, especially in a context of environmental emergencies as a result of the prioritisation of profits over the wellbeing of the people and the planet.

    Third, the democratic deficit of the IMF does not recommend it for the role of improving gender equality and women’s human rights in developing countries. The IMF’s governance mechanism through the Executive Board is indisputably skewed toward G7 countries. Regardless of the fact that almost all countries in the world are members, economic power determines the voting power of states, creating an unequal and undemocratic decision-making process where a handful of rich nations control over half of the vote in both the IMF and World Bank, and the US alone has veto power over Board decisions. Developing countries, which together constitute 85 percent of the world’s population, have a minority share. If we look at the voting allocations in per capita terms, the inequalities are revealed to be truly extreme: for every vote that the average person in the global North has, the average person in the Global South has only one-eighth of a vote. This is a racialized inequality and is one of many forms of economic apartheid operating at the heart of international economic governance today. As a result, the countries that became rich during the colonial period now enjoy disproportionate power when it comes to determining the rules of the global economy. Inequality begets inequality. As a result, the institution’s ability to govern for global economic stability and cooperation, and with the mutual trust of the vast majority of its membership, is undermined. A clear example of the negative impacts in the practice is the largely unequal distribution of SDRs based on the quota power. The Fund’s illegitimate governance structure also reinforces its narrow agenda and mandate of macroeconomic stability and growth, which makes it incompatible with the original mission under which it was given a mandate to operate at a global stage.  

    We note that at the time of IMF’s founding, very few Global South countries had gained independence to represent themselves at the founding event at the UN Bretton Woods Conference - only Ethiopia was invited from the African continent, while India was represented by a nominated representative of the British Empire.  We cannot therefore deny the colonial legacy of the IMF, and how it still shapes and affects  the developing world through the channels of the Fund’s mandate, unbalanced board and quota, and policy framework of macroprudential indicators in deficit, inflation and debt which determines the content and implementation of the IMF’s Gender Strategy.

    Fourth, human rights obligations based on the UN charter come with a legal obligation, including to use maximum available resources to realise economic, social and cultural rights. Yet, the IMF relentlessly pushes towards indebting developing countries with inadequate attention paid to debt relief efforts and debt cancellation calls, while at the same time enforcing regimes of austerity that have no legitimate acceptance by the people and their representatives at the country level. Furthermore, alternatives for a feminist, just, equal recovery supported by debt relief and debt cancellation, elimination of surcharges, progressive income and capital taxation, countercyclical allocations and no-debt rechannelling of SDRs, and tackling illicit financial flows that deprive capital and taxable revenue from the global South, are not pursued nor consistently supported by the IMF.  Even the IMF’s own research points to the failure of austerity policies, but we do not see this reflected in the IMF’s country-based conditionality. This can be exemplified most recently in the case of Zambia, where conditionality has pushed up value added tax (VAT) that hurts the poorest, and public sector cuts to run a fiscal surplus to repay creditors who are not taking adequate debt relief measures. A similar situation is seen in Sri Lanka, where most of public services are affected by austerity measures and where hunger and poverty has worsened, with inflation by August already rising to 64.3%. Meanwhile, the IMF itself is not supporting a multilateral debt restructuring mechanism where all creditors - public, multilateral, and private - participate, nor meaningful debt relief and cancellation for debt-distressed countries. Debt sustainability should not come before life sustainability, this is why it is clear Debt Sustainability Analysis (DSA) needs to incorporate assessments of public financing required for gender equality, human rights and climate change-related commitments. 

    Fifth, gender equality impacts of budget cuts in public services and sectors, reductions in the public wage bill as well as regressive taxation and labour market flexibilization are currently taking place across many developing countries through channels such as, for example, diminished access to essential services, loss of livelihoods, and increased unpaid work and time poverty. A new report, End Austerity: A global report on budget cuts and harmful social reforms, shows that 85 percent of the world’s population will live in the grip of austerity measures by 2023. This trend is likely to continue until at least 2025, when 75 percent of the global population (129 countries) could still be living under these conditions. The key fiscal policy tools that have historically supported the largely unpaid care economy across the developing world are precisely sustained, long-term public investments in public systems and services. It is precisely such fiscal tools that the IMF undermines through its persistent emphasis on fiscal adjustment, be it through the registers of loans, surveillance or technical assistance. For example, in Ecuador, where 85% of nurses are women, approximately 3,680 public health employees were dismissed in 2019, amounting to 29% of total public employee dismissals. In spite of empirical evidence of how such dismissals exacerbated Covid’s mortality toll in 2020, dismissals of essential public health employees continued through 2020 and 2021. 

    Sixth, this gender strategy emerges from a very problematic and dangerous misdiagnosis of the "problem". In the IMF’s view, persistent gender inequality is only tangentially related to macroeconomic policy. Whereas, in fact, the macroeconomic policies pursued and enforced by the IMF are a central cause of these inequalities. As a leading international financial institution, the IMF is culpable of women’s human rights violations across the Global South. The ‘solution’ that the IMF proposes not only fails to include an internal revision of the IMF’s portfolio with a human rights, gender equality and environmental criteria lens, but it proposes to maintain the same policy framework with damaging impacts, and with even more involvement of the IMF in countries’ policy space. It is evident that this is only going to make the problem worse, not better.

    Seventh, the content of this new strategy illustrates a pink-washing programme that promotes, without institutional reflection or stocktaking of its empirical record over four decades, an ever-expanding encroachment into the policy space and economic sovereignty of developing countries.  As such, the Gender Strategy represents a problematic ‘mission creep’ of the IMF. We stress that, as an institution, the Fund does not have gender expertise nor the requisite mandate, which is also duly noted in the Strategy document itself. Such lack of understanding, professional training and understanding of feminist economics calls into serious question the legitimacy of the IMF to constructively address women’s human rights and gender equality.

    The historical record of the IMF in catering to the interests and priorities of wealthy countries and financial market actors, and its lack of accountability of its own portfolio (which also lacks an alignment to environmental integrity criteria, and therefore is still promoting investments in the destruction of biodiversity and the extraction of fossil fuels), makes us wary of the use of the gender equality agenda without any expertise, but with an explicit intention to expand the imposition of liberal measures at the country level. The IMF Gender Strategy is problematic because it selectively instrumentalizes gender equality agenda as an entry point to construct new fiscal conditionalities for Global South countries, reinforcing the neocolonial and patriarchal dynamics that the IMF has been critiqued on by social movements and progressive academics worldwide over several decades. Furthermore, by actively promoting an expansion of IMF staff at the national level to “advise” on gender goes well beyond the mandate of the IMF on macreconomic stability and international monetary and fiscal policy cooperation. Besides this encroachment of mandate, it also undermines the existing knowledge of institutional mechanisms, legal provisions and long-established processes, for example, CEDAW, the Beijing Platform, the SDGs, dedicated national ministries on women’s rights and gender equality, and  feminist and women’s movements at the local level. 

     

    We believe part of our work in monitoring and engaging with the IMF comes the need to call out for meaningful and substantive processes and content, and to reject initiatives that we believe undermine the human rights and well-being of people on the ground. For all of the above we:

    1. Reject the IMF’s Gender Strategy as a means to advance gender equality and women’s rights and call upon the IMF to address the manifold harms exacted on gender equality and women’s economic and social rights by the decades long history of fiscal consolidation, inflation targeting and structural reform conditionalities that is pursued within all loan facilities as well as Article IV surveillance reports. If the IMF is truly concerned with gender, or gender gaps, it is precisely systemic change to the IMF’s own austerity bias that would substantively contribute to gender equality across the developing world, particularly in this moment of multiple and intersecting crises.
    2. Denounce the lack of comprehensive consultation around this strategy with relevant actors, especially with feminist and women and girl’s human rights organisations from developing countries, where the real economy, social and human impacts are acutely experienced. As such, we call out the so-called “consultations” organized by the IMF around this gender strategy, that were tokenistic exercises with a lack of real interest or willingness to address the long-standing concerns voiced by the critical community, which includes the voices and leadership of feminists and women’s movements, as well as feminist economists, especially from developing countries, in this process. Their experiences should have been centered across the process, especially with an intersectional lens.
    3. We particularly reject the IMF’s colonial pretense in expanding its presence at country level in developing countries, undermining the existing expertise of the feminist movement and the institutional mechanisms for the advancement of women that were gained with hard work by the women’s movement for decades.
    4. Demand the IMF initiate a serious assessment of the institution’s inherent bias toward fiscal consolidation, particularly during economic crises and downturns. Such a reassessment would be a far more meaningful indication of the IMF's commitment to women's human rights and gender equality.
    5. Demand the IMF initiate an internal revision of IMF's own governance, mechanisms, and policies to be aligned with the human rights framework and to be consistent with principles of economic, gender, environmental and distributive justice. This sole revision will have a greater impact in developing countries than any other IMF’s thematic strategy. 

     

    In solidarity,

     

    Signatory organizations:

     

    1. #Whispers
    2. A 11 - Initiative for Economic and Social Rights
    3. ACCESS CHAPTER 2
    4. Acción Ciudadana por la Democracia y el Desarrollo
    5. Acompañantes Laguna
    6. ActionAid International
    7. Actions Communautaires pour le Développement de la Femme (ACDF)
    8. Advocacy and Awareness Initiative (AAC-Kenya)
    9. Africa Forum and Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD)
    10. African Women's Development Fund
    11. Akina Mama wa Afrika
    12. ALTSEAN-Burma
    13. Amazone advisors
    14. AMERICAS.ORG
    15. AMIHAN National Federation of Peasant Women
    16. Araña Feminista
    17. Art and Global Health Center Africa
    18. Asia Pacific Women’s Watch (APWW)
    19. Asian Peoples Movement on Debt and Development
    20. Asikana Network
    21. Asociacion Lola Mora
    22. ASOCIACION MUJERES EMPRENDEDORAS DE ALTA VERAPAZ MEAV
    23. Association for Farmers Rights Defense, AFRD
    24. Association For Promotion Sustainable Development
    25. Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID)
    26. Association pour l'Integration et le Developpement Durable au Burundi, AIDB
    27. Bangladesh Nari Progati Sangha (BNPS)
    28. Beyond Beijing Committee (BBC) Nepal
    29. Black Women Caucus
    30. Body & Data
    31. BRICS Feminist Watch
    32. Bullyid Indonesia
    33. Callas Foundation
    34. Campaign of Campaigns
    35. Center for Trade Union and Human Rights, Inc (CTUHR)
    36. Centre for Budget and Policy Studies
    37. Centre for Citizens Conserving Environment & Management (CECIC)
    38. Centro de Estudios de la Mujer de la Universidad Central de Venezuela
    39. Centro de Estudios e Investigación sobre Mujeres
    40. Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS)
    41. CEYLON MERCANTILE, INDUSTRIAL AND PUBLIC WORKERS UNION
    42. Christian Aid
    43. Circulos Femeninos Populares (CFP)
    44. CIVICUS
    45. CNCD-11.11.11
    46. Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd
    47. CREDDHO
    48. Ddeser Jalisco
    49. Diverse Voices & Action (DIVA) for Equality
    50. Echoes Of Women In Africa Initiatives
    51. Empower Foundation
    52. Equality (China)
    53. Equality Bahamas
    54. Equidad de género, ciudadanía, trabajo y familia
    55. Espacio de Trabajo Fiscal para la Equidad
    56. ETI MBONO GENDER CONCERNS FOUNDATION
    57. Eyala
    58. FEIM
    59. Feminature Uganda
    60. feminisms.ink
    61. FEMNET - African Women's Development and Communication Network
    62. FIAN International
    63. Fight Inequality Alliance
    64. Focus on the Global South
    65. For Equality
    66. Friends of the Earth US
    67. FSBPI
    68. Gender Action
    69. Gender and Development Network
    70. Gender, Peace & Security
    71. GenderCC SA
    72. Gestos
    73. Global Forest Coalition (GFC)
    74. Global Social Justice
    75. Global South Coalition for Dignified Menstruation
    76. GRAMYA RESOURCE CENTRE FOR WOMEN
    77. Indigenous Environmental Network
    78. Indigenous Peoples Global Forum for Sustainable Development, IPGFforSD (International Indigenous Platform)
    79. Indonesian migrant workers Union
    80. Initiative for Right View (IRV)
    81. International Association for Feminist Economics
    82. International Federation of Social Workers
    83. International Network to end Violence against women and girls
    84. International Planned Parenthood
    85. International Women's Development Agency
    86. Jordens Vänner/Friends of the Earth, Sweden
    87. Just Associates - JASS
    88. Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (KADAMAY)
    89. Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women's Rights, CLADEM.
    90. Ligue pour les Droits de la Femme Congolaise (LDFC)
    91. Living All Inclusive In Belau (LAIIB) Organization
    92. Make Mothers Matter (MMM)
    93. Masimanyane Women's Rights International
    94. MenEngage Global Alliance
    95. Milieudefensie - Friends of the Earth Netherlands
    96. Msingi Adili Initiative
    97. Murna Foundation
    98. National Indigenous Women Forum
    99. NAWO
    100. Ni Una Menos
    101. Nigerian Feminist Forum
    102. Nijera Kori and Sangat
    103. Nkoko Iju Africa
    104. Noor
    105. OQ Consulting BV
    106. PA WOMEN’S ASSOCIATION “ALGA”
    107. Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum
    108. Palangkaraya Ecological and Human Rights Studies (PROGRESS Kalimantan)
    109. Paramount Young Women Initiative
    110. Peperusha Binti
    111. Persatuan Sahabat Wanita Selangor
    112. Phenix Center for Economic and Informatics Studies
    113. Project on Organizing, Development, Education, and Research (PODER)
    114. Promsex, Centro de Promoción y Defensa de los Derechos Sexuales y Reproductivos
    115. PSI
    116. PWESCR
    117. Raise Your Voice Saint Lucia Inc
    118. RCWG
    119. Reacción Climática
    120. Reality of aid africa
    121. Realizing Sexual and Reproductive Justice (RESURJ)
    122. RECODEF AACJ
    123. Red por los Derechos Sexuales y Reproductivos en México
    124. REDE FEMINISTA DE SAÚDE, DIREITOS SEXUAIS E DIREITOS REPRODUTIVOS
    125. REFACOF
    126. ReFocus Consulting
    127. Refuge des Femmes d'Haiti (Ref-Haiti)
    128. Regions Refocus
    129. Roots for Equity
    130. Rumpun Perempuan dan Anak
    131. SERUNI
    132. Sexual Rights Initiative
    133. Shirakat - Partnership for Development
    134. Shobujer Ovijan Foundation (SOF)
    135. Sisters at Law
    136. Sisters of Charity Federation
    137. Social Watch
    138. Society for Rural Education and Development
    139. Solidaritas Perempuan
    140. Soroptimist International
    141. South Feminist Futures
    142. Southeast Asia Women’s Watch (SEAWWatch)
    143. Southern and Eastern Africa Trade Information and Negotiations Institute (SEATINI) Uganda
    144. stonewall women empowerment initiative ug
    145. SUR | Instituto del Sur Urbano
    146. Swaziland Women’s Land Rights Alliance
    147. Tax and Gender Working Group at Global Alliance for Tax Justice (GATJ)
    148. Tax Justice Network
    149. The Uganda Association of Women Lawyers-FIDA Uganda
    150. Tunisian Youth Impact
    151. UBINIG
    152. UNISC International
    153. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
    154. Universidad Nacional de Colombia
    155. University and The 50/50 Group
    156. Urgent Action Fund for Women's Human Rights
    157. WEDO
    158. WIDE - Network for women´s rights and feminist perspectives in development
    159. WILPF groupe Senegal
    160. WILPF TOGO
    161. WO=MEN Dutch Gender Platform
    162. Womankind Worldwide
    163. Women effort for inclusive development.
    164. Women Engage for a Common Future
    165. Women In Development Europe+ (WIDE+)
    166. Women Migrants
    167. Women WISE3
    168. Women Working Group (WWG)
    169. Women's Action Forum, Lahore
    170. Women's Declaration International Bahamas
    171. Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
    172. Women's international League for Peace and Freedom, Ghana
    173. Women's International Peace Centre
    174. Women's Leadership Centre
    175. Women's Support and Information Centre NPO
    176. Women's Working Group on Finance for Development
    177. Working Women's Front
    178. WREPA

     

    Individuals:

    1. Achan Mungleng
    2. Agostina Costantino
    3. Alda M. Facio
    4. Alreem Kamal
    5. Ambreen Fatima
    6. Amparo Bravo
    7. Ani Hao
    8. Anna Brown
    9. Armando Franco
    10. Atsu EKLU
    11. Âurea Mouzinho
    12. Bette Levy
    13. Beverly Bucur
    14. Bhumika Muchhala
    15. Cabilan Ganeshamoorthy
    16. Carola Mejia
    17. Caryll Tozer
    18. Catherine Tuitt MBE
    19. Catia Cecilia Confortini
    20. Daniela Veronica Gabor
    21. Danira Flores
    22. Daptnhe Cuevas
    23. Denisse Michel Vélez Martínez
    24. Devan Zingler
    25. Edwin Mumbere
    26. Elaine Zuckerman
    27. Elda Nayeli Flores Montelongo
    28. Emilia Reyes
    29. Esme A.
    30. Eudine Barriteau
    31. Eva L. Maes
    32. Farida Akhter
    33. Francisco Cantamutto
    34. Gabriela B.
    35. Gabriela García
    36. Gabriele Köhler
    37. Gorana Mlinarevic
    38. Grieve Chelwa
    39. Guadalupe González
    40. Hein Oo
    41. Immaculate (Uganda)
    42. Iratxe Perea Ozerin
    43. Janakie Sen
    44. Jase N.
    45. Jennie C. Stephens
    46. Jennifer Lipenga
    47. Joan French
    48. Joey Tau
    49. Jorge Ramos
    50. Jose Flores
    51. José Miguel Hernández
    52. Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky
    53. Judith wedderburn
    54. Judy M. Taguiwalo
    55. Kalpanee Gunawardana
    56. Kartika Sari
    57. Katharina Pliskal
    58. Katrin Geyer
    59. Kumi Samuel
    60. Leah Eryenyu
    61. Lénica Reyes Zúñiga
    62. Leslie Vélez
    63. Lidy Nacpil
    64. Liliana Huerta García
    65. Lillian Nalwoga
    66. Louise Hemfrey
    67. Lucia Perez Fragoso
    68. Lucía Zavala
    69. lynn Abrahams
    70. Magdalena Belén Rua
    71. Mahmuda Begum
    72. Maira Lange
    73. Marcela Ballara
    74. María Julia Eliosoff
    75. María Magdalena Montelongo Reyes
    76. Marina Pervin
    77. Martha Salazar
    78. Mary Hames
    79. Mireya Peart
    80. MLR de Fonseka
    81. Mukupa Nsenduluka
    82. Naazish Ata Ullah
    83. Nadia Naciff
    84. Ndeye Fatou Ndiaye
    85. Ndongo Samba Sylla
    86. Neha Kagal
    87. Nela Porobic
    88. Nelisiwe Mtshali
    89. Nicole Daniels
    90. Noemi Brenta
    91. Nomvula Mokonyane
    92. Nora G. Bowier
    93. Nyla Naz
    94. Okunia patience
    95. Patricia Arendar
    96. Paul Robert Gilbert
    97. Paula Herrera Idárraga
    98. PM T de Silva
    99. Polly Meeks
    100. Prabha Khosla
    101. Pregs Govender
    102. Rebecca Sullivan
    103. Rodrigo Rivera
    104. Roselyn Enobong Okon
    105. Ruth Guzmán
    106. Salima Hashmi
    107. Salma Kahale
    108. Septina Florimonte
    109. Sevgim Denizaltı
    110. Sharon Akoth Rombo
    111. Sikhander Coopoo
    112. Sonia Phalatse
    113. Sophie Hardefeldt
    114. Sulochana Peiris
    115. Tadeo G.
    116. Tania Flores
    117. Taylor Rogers
    118. Teresa Loch
    119. Tia Pamungkas
    120. VINIANA LEWAMOQE
    121. Visakha Tillekeratne
    122. Wambura Chacha
    123. Yasso Kanti Bhattachan
    124. Yvon Poirier