Washington DC– Anti-poverty group ONE today called for the IMF to amend their proposal to raise revenue from ‘financial activities’ by making clear some of the proceeds would be used for African development.

Oliver Buston, ONE European Director, said:

“The IMF have come up with some promising proposals to recover bailout money for Western countries but they have ignored the fact that the financial crisis spread across the world. Countries in Africa that did nothing to cause the crisis are estimated to have lost $130billion due to falls in trade, FDI, remittances and bank lending.

“The IMF should make clear in their final report to the G20 in June that some of the revenue raised from their proposal on financial activities will be directed to Africa. Africa should not be forgotten when it comes to securing a global recovery.

“The IMF’s own analysis found that “the global financial crisis greatly compounds the policy challenges confronting the region as it strives to consolidate its economic gains and meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)”.

ONE made a submission in January setting out two tests by which to judge the final report:

1. Any proposal needs to be sustainable and substantial in nature. A short-term measure would fail to provide the predictable and permanent streams of additional finance that are required.

2. At least part of the revenue raised should be used to provide additional finance for global

public goods, including further assistance for developing countries to reach the MDGs. The

financial crisis is threatening to undermine hard won progress on reducing extreme poverty.

Additional resources to prevent this happening, alongside compensation for governments

who bailed out their banks, would be a truly fair solution.