The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) were set up during the end of the Second World War (WWII) to rebuild the economies of Europe.
However, in order for the World Bank and IMF to implement their policies, they global financial institutions began offering loans to poor countries but only if the poor countries privatized their economies and allowed western corporations free access to their raw materials and markets. That was a poverty trap and many poor countries realized this when it was already too late—we were in deep waters.
That was the beginning of much of the problems we face today in Africa. Now we are in a vicious cycle of poverty and there seems to be no way out. The western corporations flourish while the poor countries die in poverty. In other words, the poor in Africa continue to feed the greedy rich corporations in the western world. The poor get poorer while the rich get richer.
People continue to die from extreme poverty and hunger in Africa and other parts of the world but not so many people know that the World Bank, IMF and the World Trade Organization (WTO) are behind almost all of these. It is a new form of war whereby the rich western corporations employ the poverty of the poor and the ignorance of the innocent as top weapons of mass destruction. In other words, the IMF, World Bank and WTO are the triple enemies of progress in almost every developing country in the world today. Now, let’s see how the World Bank, IMF and WTO operate in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Take a country like Ghana for example. Ghana is blessed with abundance of natural resources. The World Bank and IMF are very interested in countries such as Ghana, where they can easily control the natural resources and the markets. There used to be some prosperous rich farming communities in the northern parts of Ghana and the government of Ghana used to give those rice-producing farmers some subsidies to increase productivity, thus, providing enough food to feed the nation and increasing National Income (NI).
However, the IMF and World Bank stood in and told the Ghanaian government that they (the global financial institutions) would not offer any loans unless there’s reduction in the amount spent on farming subsidies which benefitted poor rice farmers—with significant impact on the Ghanaian economy. The main reason for this was that Ghana had to import rice from western countries such as the United States (a major partner of the World Bank and IMF).
Now, Ghana imports most of its rice from abroad at huge costs every year. So, at the end of the day, Ghana owes the World Bank and IMF huge amounts of money. However, the money did not remain in the Ghanaian economy because Ghana had to use the loan to import food from abroad. Meanwhile, the rice-producing communities in Ghana could have helped produce enough rice to feed the nation—and even export some abroad to make more profit. At this time, the northern communities in Ghana remain the poorest in the country with no better jobs and no opportunities at all in most parts. Young boys and girls—some as young as 9 years old—are migrating to the southern parts of the country to major cities and towns such as Kumasi and Accra (a very dangerous journey for kids) all in search for jobs so they can take care of their poor dying families back home. Most of these kids—locally known as “Kayayo”—never return home. Some die along the way and some return worse than before and all thanks to the IMF and World Bank.
Although part of the borrowed fund was returned to the IMF and World Bank, we still owe them a lot. That is why most developing countries have piled up loans over the years. Sometimes you hear “debt cancellation” and you may think they forgive poor countries their debts but that is not how it works in reality. The World Bank and IMF never forgive because the outrageous amount of money owed to these financial institutions, including the WTO and United States of America (a major partner to the IMF and World Bank) is directly and indirectly controlling almost all the affairs of those poor countries. In other words, if you don’t obey what the IMF and World Bank say then you must pay back the debt, and since you cannot pay back the owed money, you have no better option than to whatever you are told.
Any leader who doesn’t obey the World Bank, IMF and WTO, among others, is considered a “terrorist” and must be assassinated in most cases. For example, when there is an oil discovery in a developing country (that owes money to the global financial institutions and their partners) and the leader refuses to corporate (and allow western corporations take over oil exploration business), these “errant” individuals are quickly unseated—dead or alive. The case of Libya’s Muammar Ghaddafi and war in Iraq explain this factual theory.
In summary, the World Bank and IMF elect only “obedient” leaders to rule in poor countries because such political situations aid hijacking of the countries’ economy and markets.