- Health spending has been cut by 18% in countries where the IMF is requiring large-scale austerity rather than allowing them to seek debt relief
- Education spending has been cut by 16%
- GDP growth per person is just 1.2%, less than half the average for countries in the global South
Lower-income countries that have been refused the opportunity to seek debt relief by the IMF have instead cut health and education spending by a sixth, according to new research by Debt Justice.
The IMF is breaking its own policies by finding external debts in these countries to be sustainable, when paying debts in full is leading to large cuts in spending on key social services, and trapping countries in low economic growth.
The new…