Overview: International Policy

About half of the all money spent to end poverty, hunger and HIV & AIDS never reaches the people it was intended to benefit. Creating policies that make aid less accessible and less relevant to the needs of the people it is intended to benefit makes an already difficult job still more challenging.

ActionAid works with communities and movements in poor countries to hold their governments accountable for the impacts of their economic policies. But we also recognize that those policies are shaped and dictated elsewhere, and often by the governments of wealthy countries. That’s why ActionAid brings the voices and concerns of our partners into the international policy debates that have such an impact on poverty in developing countries.

There is a direct—and often devastating—connection between the capacity of poor people to improve their circumstances and decisions about international economic policies that are typically made far away from the people who will feel their impacts.

Consider, for example, the prospects for a woman farmer in a developing country who has joined an agricultural marketing cooperative to boost her income and improve her sales:

  • The market price of her crops will rise or fall based on agreements at the World Trade Organization about whether her country has to open its borders to cheaper, subsidized imports with which her cooperative cannot compete.
  • The likelihood that her children will have access to schools or health clinics will depend on conditions imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) when it lends money to her government.
  • And the availability of foreign aid to promote development in her community and her country will hinge on commitments made at the United Nations about measures to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, or among the leaders of the most industrialized countries of the world (the “Group of Eight” or G-8).

Decisions on global economic policies are usually taken by the leaders of countries or their representatives. In some of these venues, such as the agencies of the United Nations, rich and poor governments are at the table to discuss policies together. In other settings like the G-8 or the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, only wealthier nations are invited. Either way, because of the power imbalances among countries, international economic policies typically favor the interests of developed nations, at the expense of poor countries.

The impacts of those policies are felt all the way to the communities where ActionAid works. Too often, the decisions are made by the executive branches of governments, without adequate oversight from their legislatures. In other words, vital economic policies about trade, public spending and government regulation are planned and agreed behind closed doors, and beyond the reach of the billions of poor people who will be most affected by them.

ActionAid believes that poor and excluded people have the right to hold decision makers accountable for the consequences of their policies. We bring in our partners to monitor discussions in the international settings where the policies are made, and propose specific reforms or alternatives that will better serve the needs of poor and excluded people.

But ActionAid also recognizes that the key to effective democratic governance lies in the capacity of social movements and civil society around the world to work with their legislators and parliaments to hold national leaders and international institutions accountable for making pro-development policies. That’s why we work to empower our partners to engage their governments directly. In several countries ActionAid has built strong alliances with legislators with the authority and disposition to exercise oversight of the executive branch in its actions at international institutions.

For example, in the US ActionAid provides information to the House Committee on Financial Services to demand from the US Treasury Department more detailed explanations about the macroeconomic policies pursued by the US representative at the IMF. ActionAid also encourages the House Judiciary Committee to hold hearings to regulate vulture funds, financial instruments through which unscrupulous investors use legal loopholes to claim huge payments from poor countries that are negotiating their way out of crippling foreign debt.