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