This 4 page argumentative discusses the role of the WTO and the IMF in both helping and hindering Zimbabwe's economic recovery, especially as it applies to AIDS. Bibliography lists 9 sources.
Name of Research Paper File: JV57_JVzimwtoimf.rtf
Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
A child born in Africa . . . has more than a 50% chance of being malnourished, a high risk of being HIV-positive at birth while malaria, diarrhoeal diseases, and
acute respiratory infections account for 51% of deaths. A child born in the African region is more likely to lose his/her mother due to complications in childbirth or HIV/AIDS. (World
Health Organization, 2006, p. 196). Because of this, the road to recovery is difficult for
Zimbabwe, which has suffered under the rule of President Mugabe for seventeen years. He allowed wars to decimate the land and disease to spread. Instead of taking actions to help
the people of Zimbabwe, he and his ministers took annual raises while guerillas roamed the land collecting everything citizens had in taxes. During this time the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) kept loaning money to the despotic ruler who didnt spend any of it on social programs. Within the first year he was out of office, the
United States and other nations insisted the IMF collect all payments in arrears from Zimbabwe. Their power to insist on this was written into IMF policy and their ability to
delay Zimbabwe trade was written into World Trade Organization (WTO) policies. For a long time, Zimbabwe was prevented from recovery. History is repeating itself.
Policies of the WTO and IMF Trade Regulations Paloni & Zanardi (2006) write that when IMF funding is demand-determined, the fund
must look at each case separately in order to allocate funds fairly according to donor interests. They create an image of IMF and WTO reforms as leading to anti-reform movements,