Despite the fact that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are promising to put Africa on top of their priorities, Civil Society Organisations gathered at the sidelines of the annual meeting of the Bretton Woods institutions are calling for a major rethinking of the roles that the IMF and World Bank play in the global economy. These organisations have called for IMF and World Bank changes to reflect the initial purpose of these institutions and listen to the voices of the low income and developing countries.

In its report entitled "Challenging Conditions: A new strategy for reform at the World Bank and the IMF," Christian aid, says that IMF and World Bank have continued to impose conditions on poor countries, which calls for donor countries to put their money where its mouth is and place a moratorium on funding the IMF and World Bank, until they stop imposing economic conditions. The report says that conditions undermine democratic decision making and countries are forced to adopt specific policies to secure development finance, even when reforms are unpopular to their citizens.

The IMF and the World Bank have slammed the doors on a number of civil society groups whose members were due to participate in the meetings going on in Singapore. Despite having formal accreditation from the WB and the IMF to participate in the meetings, these groups were denied the right to raise critical voices against the work of these organizations, according to a release from the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP). "GCAP, the world's largest ever anti-poverty movement, joins the chorus of civil society organizations the world over in condemning the reports that a number of civil society representatives have been 'blacklisted' and denied entry into Singapore for the Annual Meetings of the World Bank and IMF."

Economic conditions imposed by donors have frequently been used to promote inappropriate policies, such as trade liberalisation and privatisation to many countries. For example, last year, Christian Aid estimated that in Sub-saharan Africa, enforced trade liberalisation, mainly at the hands of the World Bank and IMF-cost developing countries US$ 272 billion over the past 20 years. The IMF announced this week that it would initiate an integrated set of reforms to its governance structure over the next two years and, has given a small quota increases to Turkey, Korea, Mexico and China.

However Eric Gutierrez of Action Aid International said that "if the IMF wants to restore credibility, then it must stop tinkering around and make fundamental reforms. Otherwise borrowing countries will keep voting with their feet." Despite the criticism, finance ministers backed a new World Bank anti-graft strategy at a meeting in Singapore on Monday. The Bank's President, Paul Wolfowitz, plans to link future aid so long as beneficiary countries demonstrate good governance, like adopting transparent public procurements and make efforts to stamp out corruption.

But there is a growing number of Africans who say foreign aid -- regardless of whether it is tied to good governance -- does more harm than good. "In principle, we are not for cutting back on lending, but to increase the amount of aid we give. We want to ensure the money we give is used to buy textbooks for children, provide sanitation for poor and nutrition for mothers, but not used to line pockets of powerful people," Wolfowitz said.

Wolfowitz, however says, his aim is to reduce poverty. "The purpose is not to disengage from areas where there are problems but rather to engage more deeply to help countries solve their problems and improve governance." Wasteful use of aid, he says, comes at the expense of 'many other countries or ministries that have demonstrated the need and capacity to use more than what are available to them.'