A new report from the Oakland Institute, Walking on the West Side: the World Bank and the IMF in the Ukraine Conflict,
exposes how the international financial institutions swooped in on the
heels of the political upheaval and are vying to deregulate and throw
open Ukraine’s vast agricultural sector to foreign investors. Former
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s rejection of an EU Association
agreement in favor of a Russian deal was a major factor in the crisis
that led to his ouster in February 2014. Immediately following the
change to a pro-EU government, the country’s pivot to the West was
solidified with a $17 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) and an additional $3.5 billion aid package from the World Bank,
both of which require significant economic reforms and austerity
measures that are set to have disastrous effects within the nation.
The report details how the aid packages, contingent on austerity
reforms, will have a devastating impact on Ukrainians’ standard of
living and increase poverty in the country. Reforms mandated by the
EU-backed loan include agricultural deregulation that will benefit
agribusiness corporations and natural resource and land policy shifts
that facilitate foreign corporate takeover of enormous tracts of land.
The EU Association Agreement also includes a clause requiring both
parties to cooperate to extend the use of biotechnology.
"While the World Bank and IMF often disguise their activities in
other countries under the objectives of development, the case of Ukraine
makes it clear that this is just Orwellian double-speak. Their intent
is blatant: to open up foreign markets to Western corporations. It’s
telling that one of the key reforms enforced by the Bank is that the
government must limit its own power by removing restrictions to
competition as well as the role of state ‘control’ in economic
activities," said Frederic Mousseau, Policy Director of the Oakland
Institute and co-author of the report.
“The high stakes around control of Ukraine’s vast agricultural
sector, the world’s third largest exporter of corn and fifth largest
exporter of wheat, constitute an oft-overlooked critical factor. In
recent years, foreign corporations have acquired more than 1.6 million
hectares of Ukrainian land,” he continued. An additional deal signed
with China for 3 million hectares of farmland in September 2013 is in
limbo, since it is unclear whether the freshly minted government and its
new Western allies will allow it to go forward.
Walking on the West Side
exposes how the international financial institutions serve the
interests of agribusiness corporations through deregulation of the food
and agriculture sectors and policies favoring foreign land acquisitions.
Ukraine is also one of the 10 pilot countries in the World Bank’s new
Benchmarking the Business of Agriculture (BBA) project, a widely criticized ranking system that promotes agricultural policy reforms including the deregulation of seed and fertilizer markets.
“The Bank’s activities and its loan and reform programs in Ukraine
seem to be working toward the expansion of large industrial holdings in
Ukrainian agriculture owned by foreign entities,” said Mousseau.
Beyond agriculture, it is expected that reforms pitched as a means to
improve the business climate and increase private investment in the
country will have a devastating social impact, resulting in a collapse
of the standard of living and dramatic increases in poverty.
The acceleration of structural adjustment led by the international
institutions following the installation of a pro-West government is
likely to further expand foreign acquisitions of agricultural land and
extend the corporatization of agriculture in the country. The structural
adjustment program will also likely increase foreign control of the
economy while increasing poverty and inequality in the country. The
World Bank and the IMF, however, have failed to demonstrate how such
programs will improve the lives of Ukrainian citizens and build a
sustainable economic future.
Learn more and download report here
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