The World Bank and IMF Structured By The West To Promote Neo-Colonialism

• The World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization are neo-colonial tools orchestrated by the West to aid the continued enslavement of Africa.
• The West has succeeded in using both the World Bank and IMF to create and enforce policies in the guise of world trade/aid that has enabled them to hold Africa by the neck.
• The West does not want Africa to develop because if it does, they would lose control over us. After all, a healthy man does not need a physician.

Have you ever wondered why the West always frowns at policies that tend to fight against Africa’s dependency on foreign aid?

Why was the West so concerned and irritated when Kwame Nkrumah preached against Africa’s dependence on foreign aid in the 1960s? Why was there pandemonium in Europe recently when Ghana’s President Akufo Addo spoke of ‘Africa without aid’? France’s President Macron could not believe his ears! Why does the conceptual West want Africa to continually borrow from them and increase the continent’s debt status? Indeed, there is more than meets the eye.

It is not a secret that Africa is experiencing extreme poverty and are light years behind other developing countries in Europe, America, and Asia. The situation has become so bad that it appears to be getting worse by the day. The various countries in the continent are experiencing the same challenges of hunger, disease, illiteracy, under-development, poor leadership, and civil war. But Africa’s biggest problem and perhaps the root cause of the other aforementioned challenges is its debt to the colonial masters.

One would have thought that after independence, African countries will explore self-sustainable models and cut the dependency channel to their colonial masters. Sadly, this is not the case and it raises the biggest question mark on Africa’s independence. How can we say we are truly independent when we still depend on the crumbs from the table of our colonial masters?

Africa isn’t truly independent yet and debt is one way in which the slave masters have ensured this. The colonial masters have continued to maintain their stronghold on Africa through the pretense of offering economic support through the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) were created in 1944, and are jointly referred to as the Bretton Woods institutions. It was created with the purpose of providing help and support in the rebuilding of economies that were affected by World War II. However, in order for the world bank and the IMF to implement their policies, they 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 it when it was too late. We were already in chains.

This was to be achieved through a well-structured international trade organization, but it was not until 1995 that the World Trade Organization (WTO) was formed. The reason for the conspicuous delay despite the operation of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) for 51 years remains unknown. That was the beginning of many 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. Western corporations flourish while the poor in Africa and other parts of the developing world, continue to die in poverty. 

The general perception is that the World Bank, the IMF, and the WTO help fight poverty and hunger in the developing world. However, in reality, this is far from the truth. It is a new form of warfare whereby the rich western corporations employ deception, the poverty of the poor, and the ignorance of the innocent, as top weapons of mass destruction. In fact, the World Bank, the IMF, and the WTO (the World Trade Organization) are the triple enemies of progress in almost every developing country in the world today. Now let’s see how the World Bank, the IMF, and the WTO operate in Sub-Saharan Africa.

How the World Bank and the IMF destroy Africa

The West has succeeded in using both the World Bank and IMF to create and enforce policies in the guise of world trade/aid that has enabled them to hold Africa by the neck. Through presenting itself as the only source of sustenance of the continent’s economy, African nations continue to depend on the West for sustainability. Meanwhile what the West has done in reality is to maintain the channel of colonialism as it has always been.

When you look closely, you will find out that the same policies that continue to enslave African nations and plunge them further into debt, favors the bigger nations in no small way. It gives them unprecedented control over our economy, resources, and markets. The policies of the World Bank, IMF, and the World Trade Organization further widen the large divide between the already wealthy Western economies and the struggling ones in Africa. Through these lending organizations, what the West has achieved is the economic colonization of Africa. This gives them more access to exploit African nations and continues to do as much damage to the continent as imperial colonialism did in the past.

Take a country like Ghana for example. Ghana is blessed with abundance of natural resources. The World Bank and the 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 rice farming communities in the northern parts of Ghana. In fact, the government of Ghana used to give those rice-producing farmers some farming subsidies to enable them produce rice on a larger scale to help feed the nation. However, the World Trade Organization, the World Bank and the IMF stood in and told the Ghanaian government that, they (the World Bank, the IMF, etc) would not give Ghana any more loans unless the Ghanaian government cut the farming subsidies, and the main reason behind it was that, Ghana had to import rice from “partner” western countries such as the United States (a major partner of the World Bank and the IMF).

Now Ghana imports most of its rice from abroad at huge prices every year. So at the end of the day, Ghana owes the World Bank and the 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 exported some abroad to make more profit). Now 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, 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 could 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, the World Bank and the WTO.

Is it not surprising that despite the large amounts which the World Bank and IMF claim to have lent African nations, there is very little or nothing to show for it? The World Bank alone lends US$ 25 billion a year to developing countries for the financing of development projects and economic reform.

Although the money was returned to them, we still owe them. That is why most developing countries owe the World Bank and the IMF a lot in loans. Sometimes you hear “debt cancellations” and you may think they forgive poor countries their debts but that is not how it works in reality. The World Bank and the IMF never forgive, and because of the huge debts developing countries owe, they (the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO, the United States of America [a major partner of the World Bank], etc.) control almost all the affairs of those poor countries. In other words, if you don’t obey what the World Bank, the IMF, etc. say then you must pay back the debt and because you cannot pay back the debt, you must obey whatever they tell you to do.

Any leader who doesn’t obey the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO and co is often labeled a “terrorist” and must be assassinated in most cases. For example, when there is an oil discovery in a developing country (that owes the World Bank and the IMF) and the leader of that developing country is not ready to co-operate (so western corporations can easily take over the oil exploration), the World Bank and co quickly get rid of such a leader sometimes through war (just like what happened in Iraq). The World Bank and co elect their own “obedient” leaders to rule those poor countries so that they (the World Bank, IMF and co) can easily control that country’s economy and market.

What have these countries gained over the years? Why we will not exonerate our leaders for their greed and corruption? In all fairness it is important to note that the West has devised a means to lend funds to Africa but collect it in a hundred folds through back channels. It is a case of giving a million and taking a hundred million with the backhand from us.

We must face the facts. The West does not want Africa to develop because if it does, they would lose control over us. After all, a healthy man does not need a physician. The World Bank comprises of 183 member countries, including 47 in sub-Saharan Africa. It is headed by the World Bank director, who is directly appointed by the US government. Why? Why is the post of the director not rotational?

Read between the lines and you will discover that these organizations are indeed tools of neo-colonialism.

Africa without foreign aid is the first and perhaps most important step towards true independence for Africa.

Source African Eponenet and Africa and The World