What a difference even one week can make! The World Bank and the IMF met the week after the collapse of the World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial in Cancún, and the obvious differences were not just the age of the organizations and the location - although there are plenty of similarities between Cancún and Dubai - but the structure and operating procedures of the WTO and the Bretton Woods Institutions.

A conference for those willing to take leadership in promoting action for global economic justice in religious communities and organizations Rescheduled for December 8th and 9th, 2003!! For more information, contact Susan Thompson with the Medical Mission Sisters, 703-624-1454 or email: susanstarrsthompson@juno.com, www.sndden.org/rwg/conf/. Sponsored by the Religious Working Group on the World Bank and IMF

In a rather interesting cover article in The Economist after the Cancún meeting, the author admitted that one of the strengths of the WTO was its consensus decision-making method. The author also lamented that this meant that any single country could stop the process. The latter fact is what made the collapse of the WTO meetings possible. It is an aspect of democracy that is woefully absent at the World Bank and the IMF. The lack of democracy at the institutions - and this doesn't just mean a few more percentage points for Africa or Japan - but a democratic process that is open, transparent, responsive, and accountable, has been a fundamental critique of World Bank and IMF campaigners. The lack of democracy at the Bretton Woods Institutions is one of the ways in which the institutions have been exposed as hypocritical, with a lot of rhetoric and no action to back up the rhetoric.

The 2003 annual meetings in Dubai revealed this hypocrisy yet again. But then, this seems to mean nothing; the Bretton Woods twins, it would appear, have no shame. The proposal for "democratizing" the Board of Directors was dead on arrival. The U.S. made it known well in advance that it would not support such a proposal. Because what the U.S. says goes at the World Bank and the IMF, that was the end of that.

The extent of the power of the U.S. was further revealed when we were informed that the accreditation of two South Council members, Shelly Emalin Rao from Fiji and Demba Moussa Dembele from Senegal were pending the approval of the U.S. Treasury Department. In fairness, we did submit our requests late, after the deadline, because we had not been sure of their participation until funding was received. However, we found it remarkable that their accreditation, along with the accreditation of other people who were neither U.S. citizens nor working for U.S. organizations, were subject to the approval of Treasury. It was a subject that was raised by colleagues who met with the president of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn, during the Dubai meetings.

Perhaps it saved face for the Bank and the Fund to not have to debate "democracy" in Dubai, in a country and a region that is not known for being a bastion of democratic principles and processes. However, it does make the Bank, especially, sound hollow as it lectures governments about good governance. It seems the Bank and the Fund follow a religion that says "do as I tell you, not as I do."

What a difference a week makes, or maybe a year or two. The issue of international debt has been absent from the agenda of the World Bank and IMF meetings for the last couple years. In fact, at the annual meetings and the spring meetings in April, they barely paid lip service to the issue. It leaves us, as campaigners, with a challenge. Do we let the status quo stand, or do we assert and renew our commitment to the demand for debt cancellation and reparations? Whether the international financial institutions, the Paris club, and all the other donor groupings remember to talk about international debt or not, the fact is that each day, still, 19,000 children die because their governments do not spend funds on basic health care, food security, immunization, safe water, shelter, etc., but instead service debts that are often illegitimate and always immoral, given the cost of servicing the debt. It is still the fact that while Africa needs $10 billion a year to fight the HIV/AIDS pandemic, Africa is spending $15 billion to service the debts of dictators, bad loans, apartheid and apartheid-caused debts, and debts that have already been paid many times over. It is still the case that worldwide over 30,000 children die every day from preventable and curable diseases, and often because governments do not have money to spend on these vital human rights.

Debt campaigners have never believed debt cancellation to be a "magic bullet," but we do believe it is a first and correct step in the direction that we need to be going.

While the news is grim and the facts and figures devastating and demoralizing, I have hope. I have hope because every day I hear from people around the world who are struggling for justice in many diverse ways, and in more different countries and communities than I will ever have the chance to visit. I have hope because in my travels I have met thousands of people who are committed to fighting for justice in small ways, with grand visions, and with deep commitment to justice, peace, and sustainability.

I have hope because on the Thursday morning when Hurricane Isabel was forecasted to hit Washington, DC, fifty people showed up to a conference organized by the Religious Working Group on the World Bank and the IMF ("Faith in Practice: Connecting the Dots for Global Economic Justice"). I have hope because so many people wanted this conference, that it has been rescheduled to take place on December 8-9, 2003. I have hope because in Bolivia, India, South Africa, France, and in many communities in the United States, people are standing up for their rights, and more often than not they receive solidarity from all over the world.

It is an amazing thing, hope - because, let's face it, there are many terrible things and conditions in our world today. But they have not been able to squash the idea embodied in the theme of the World Social Forum: another world is possible. In fact, in many ways, and in many places, that other possible world is being revealed slowly but surely.

So the World Bank and the IMF may spout rhetoric that they don't live out in practice. But that does not change the expectations of those of us who believe that publicly-funded institutions have a duty to serve the public good, must be transparent, democratic, responsive, and accountable to the public. And for that, the campaigns on the World Bank and the IMF must continue until the institutions are serving the public good.