Editor,
This is an open letter to President Bill Gordon and Julie Weaks, vice president for business and finance:
We write you as UNM students concerned about the World Bank, which was created in 1944 to help reconstruct Europe and later transformed to lend money to the governments of developing countries. It is now going under a public reassessment of its record.
The World Bank has failed to reduce poverty and produce economic growth. This has much to do with the undemocratic nature of the bank because those countries most affected by World Bank policies and most aware of their own developmental priorities have the least influence on its decisions.
Furthermore, the World Bank's "structural adjustment" policies foster poverty and environmental destruction through its harmful policies that force governments to cut social spending and privatize public services.
We propose that UNM issue a statement that it will not purchase World Bank bonds until demands for a fundamental reform of the bank are met.
We are especially concerned about implications of current World Bank policies' on education in developing nations. In countries such as Tanzania, where gross domestic product is a mere $210 per capita, user fees on primary education have driven enrollment rates down 20 percent (The Observer, London, Oct. 8). A World Bank seminar report noted in 1998 that 75 percent of projects in sub-Sahara Africa included user fees (Financial Times, Oct. 17).
Education plays a necessary role in poverty reduction and growth, and the World Bank's user-fee policy keep education from the poorest.
Eighty percent of the World Bank's capital comes from the sale of bonds to institutional investors such as universities, unions, municipal governments and religious organizations - all backed by taxpayer's money. The growing campaign to boycott World Bank bonds is an effort to hold the World Bank accountable to the people it supposedly serves and to leverage real reform.
Already, Oakland, San Francisco, Parnassus Investments and the Communication Workers of America, among others, have signed this pledge. Campaigns are already underway within faith-based groups, municipal governments, unions and more than 40 U.S. universities.
As a nonprofit federal income-tax exempt university, UNM makes a commitment to serve the public good. As a university with a uniquely diverse curriculum, staff and student body, our own special sphere of the public good extends across the world.
By joining the international campaign to hold the World Bank accountable to its stated goals, we create a greater opportunity for the participation of all the world's citizens in the policies and practices that shape their lives.
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This effort does not call for divestment from currently held bonds, so UNM will incur no irresponsible financial loss. Even if UNM does not hold World Bank bonds - labeled International Bank for Reconstruction and Development - a resolution against their future purchase would send a powerful political statement.
We look forward to your response.
-Ty Bannerman,
Michele Kramer
and Lulu Strongheart
World Bank Bond
Boycott campaign
