Lending Institutions, Health Care, and Human Capital
Monique Johnson
Professor Cathey
SOC300

Explore whether or not funding from international lending institutions like the World Bank and the IMF are helping or hindering the social, economic, or political development of the country that you have selected. Support your response with examples. The policies of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have systematically undermined democratic principles and eroded human rights protections in dozens of countries around the globe. By insisting that national leaders place the interests of international financial investors above the needs of their own citizens, the IMF and the World Bank have short circuited the accountability at the heart of self-governance, thereby corrupting the democratic process. The subordination of social needs to the concerns of financial markets has, in turn, made it more difficult for national governments to ensure that their people receive food, health care, and education -- basic human rights as defined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Bank's and the Fund's erosion of basic human rights and their perversion of the democratic process have made the institutions a clear and present threat to the well-being of hundreds of millions of people worldwide. The institutions, Global Exchange strongly believes, must be abolished and redesigned from scratch through a genuinely democratic, inclusive and transparent process involving all of the world's nations. (IMF/WB Report)
For more than 50 years, the IMF and the World Bank have advanced a form of economic "development" that prioritizes the concerns of wealthy lenders and multinational corporations in the industrialized north while neglecting the needs of the world's poor majority. The institutions work as a kind of international loan shark, exerting enormous influence over the economies of more than 60 countries. In order to get loans, international assistance, and debt relief, countries must agree to conditions set by the Bank and Fund. Under the guise of promoting "free trade," market liberalization, and financial stability, these two institutions have forced cuts in health care, education and other social services for millions of people across the planet, thereby deepening poverty and increasing inequality. By elevating concerns about macroeconomic financial stability above all other competing values, the institutions have created a human rights catastrophe. (IMF / WB Report)
Discuss, with examples, at least four (4) substantive ways in which a healthy population strengthens the economy of the country that you have selected. The link between nutrition and productivity arguably provides the best documented evidence in the literature on inter-relationships between health and economic prosperity. Moreover, there is evidence that, along with genotype and environmental influences, diet plays a role in the etiology of many chronic diseases. Nutrition provides a good starting point for an assessment of the evidence. In recent years, substantial strides have been made in our understanding of the links between nutrition and health in low-income settings. In earlier decades, it was generally believed that poor nutrition arose primarily because of inadequate energy or protein intake, and effort was focused on increasing energy intakes among the poor. As it became apparent that protein-energy malnutrition was only one element to be addressed in improving the nutritional status of people in low-income settings, the focus has shifted towards better understanding the influence of micronutrients such as iron, iodine, zinc, calcium, and several key vitamins on health and nutrition. This work suggests that labor outcomes are probably influenced by both macro- and micronutrients.
Ascertain the degree to which the leadership of your chosen country has used foreign aid to improve its health care system. Support your response with concrete examples. Over the last ten years, Rwanda's health system development has led to the most dramatic improvements of health in history. Rwanda is the only country in sub-Saharan Africa on track to meet most of the Millennium Development Goals. Deaths from HIV, TB, and malaria have each dropped by roughly 80 percent over the last decade and the maternal mortality ratio dropped by 60 percent over the same period. Even as the population has increased by 35 percent since 2000, the number of annual child deaths has fallen by 63 percent. In turn, these advances bolstered Rwanda's economic growth: GDP per person tripled to $580, and millions lifted themselves from poverty over the last decade.

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http://www.globalexchange.org/resources/wbimf/report