International+Monetary+Fund+(IMF)


 * International Monetary Fund **

 The International Monetary Fund (IMF), created in July 1994, is a multigovermental that concentrates on universal monetary cooperation and firm stability in foreign exchange. They collaborate with the World Bank, United Nations and the World Trade Organization. With the World Bank, the IMF established Structural Adjustment Policies which are conditions of a loan towards an economy. The IMF’s primary mission is to provide their members of countries temporary financial assistance to help reconstruct and improve any economical difficulties and to help maintain a refined economy. The organization became established in July of 1994 during the UN monetary and financial conference. The IMF initially started out with 29 countries on December 29, 1945 and has grown from then. The headquarters of the IMF are located in Washington, D.C., USA. The IMF consists of 185 members of different countries across the globe. Members of the IMF are authorized to leave at any time they wish. Countries such as Cuba, Czech Republic, Poland and Indonesia have left the IMF in the past. However, all countries but Cuba have also returned. The IMF has recently brought out that they currently have $35.8 billion outstanding loans to 64 countries.

 **Significance of the IMF **

 Why is the IMF significant to the world? The IMF does more than you think. The International Monetary Fund has positively impacted and benefited the global economy. Although the IMF’s essential goal is to provide their member countries with financial and technical assistance, they do a lot more as well. Without the IMF, the economies of the members would not be as stable. Since 1946, the IMF has collaborated with many countries in helping to stabilize and help economic growth, promote great level of employment, help with simplifying the process of international trade, and to diminish poverty.

An example of how the IMF helps economies can be seen in the Life and Debt documentary film where the IMF aids the third world economy, Jamaica. 

**__Criticism of the IMF__ **

The IMF has been criticized for taking unfair advantage of developing countries through Structural Adjustment Policies (SAPs). According to the IMF, the basis of these SAPs are to develop the economy of poorer countries and reduce poverty levels. Many people believe though, that these policies are causing developing countries to become more and more dependent on developed countries such as the U.S. The IMF has many strict conditions that the country must follow through with in order to be loaned money. These conditions often include cutting spending by the government on social services such as health and education, and forcing much of the country's industry to be dominated by private corporations. Critics say that these conditions take money away from those who live in poverty and only benefit the economies of powerful countries through the large corporations.

The documentary film Life and Debt, set in Jamaica, is a critique of the IMF and their Structural Adjustment Policies. It shows in the film how the country of Jamaica was dependent on loans from the International Monetary Fund since as a previous colony they were not yet on their feet economically. The IMF imposed conditions on loans to the people of Jamaica, for example imported products had tariffs dropped and were not allowed to have taxes placed on them, meaning local goods could not compete. In the film dairy farmers were forced to throw out milk on a daily basis since nobody was buying it, instead people were purchasing powered milk imported from the States. Jamaica is bound to a tight contract with a large interest making it very difficult for the governement to put money into healthcare or education, which further opresses the country and its people.

**__Graph__ **  The table below shows a recent estimation from the IMF of what the public debt is in each of the countries and the financial cost in stabilizing the economy after the 2008 financial crisis.    (Source: IMF, World Economic Outlook, April 2009)

<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">The image above shows in percentage of how much each country has changed in economic growth.