🔥 The 2025 IMF & World Bank Spring Meetings showed the system is broken.
🌍 Our movements are fighting back — stronger, louder, unstoppable.
🏛️ 1. Bretton Woods is Broken: People Demand Justice, Not Austerity
As the 2025 IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings conclude, one thing was clear: despite mounting crises, the Bretton Woods Institutions are still clinging to austerity. Under pressure from the US’s hardline “America First” stance, the Fund and Bank doubled down on failed orthodoxies — austerity, private finance, and political caution — while sidelining the twin emergencies of debt and climate.
The IMF slashed global growth forecasts for 2025 by half a percentage point and projected public debt to soar above pandemic-era levels, reaching 117% of global GDP by 2027 — deepening the fiscal crisis facing low- and middle-income countries. This comes at a time of surging debt burdens across the Global South and warnings from UNCTAD that nearly half the world now spends more on interest than on education or health. Nowhere was the damage of this approach more visible than in Argentina, where the IMF has openly praised sweeping austerity measures tied to its record $44 billion loan — even as social unrest intensifies and basic services are gutted.
At the World Bank, President Ajay Banga pushed ahead with “Mission 300,” a plan to expand energy access across Africa. But instead of prioritizing just transitions and renewable investment, the initiative has flirted with fossil fuel expansion and even nuclear options — ignoring evidence from civil society that such choices could deepen debt and inequality.
And yet, resistance is growing. From new calls for debt justice at the UN’s upcoming Financing for Development summit, to the African Leaders Debt Relief Initiative and feminist economic coalitions, civil society is forging ahead. If the BWIs won’t change course, the people will — building the pressure from below.
✊ 2. Voices of Resistance: Building Power Beyond the Bretton Woods Institutions
While IMF and World Bank elites hid behind closed doors, our movement took the streets, the stages, and the strategy rooms — organising for real economic justice.
- “Disrupting the Austere World: A Global Strategy Session”
Campaigners from across the End Austerity network gathered in Washington, DC to sharpen strategy, update priorities, and build stronger alliances — preparing bold interventions leading into the End Austerity Festival and beyond. Collective action, escalation, and power-building were at the heart of the agenda. - “Austerity vs Protection: Labour Unions Take the IMF to Task”
Hosted by ITUC, this fiery event exposed how IMF-driven austerity wrecks wages, strips workers’ rights, and guts public services. Union leaders made clear: real prosperity is built on decent work, strong public systems, and workers’ power — not budget cuts and corporate profits. - “Disrupting the Austere World: Global Voices and Resistance During the Spring Meetings”
Movement leaders, feminist economists, and frontline organisers gathered at Busboys and Poets for a powerful night of resistance. Speakers from Africa, Latin America, MENA, and Europe exposed how brutal public sector cuts and debt-driven austerity crush dignity and deepen poverty — and laid out bold, feminist alternatives for taxing the rich, financing care, and dismantling the global financial system. - “Feminist Realities Beyond Austerity”
Organised by Akina Mama wa Afrika and allies, this gathering amplified African feminist leadership in the fight against austerity and debt injustice. Speakers showed that real alternatives — built by women, grassroots communities, and radical movements — already exist, lighting the path forward beyond austerity.
📚 3. Tools to Fight the Austerity Agenda
As the IMF and World Bank cling to failed austerity, our movements are fighting back with sharp analysis, bold alternatives, and powerful visions for justice. Here’s what our members and allies are putting into the world:
Global Union Statement: Austerity is Violence, Workers Demand Justice
Global unions slammed the IMF and World Bank for fuelling inequality, crushing workers’ rights, and fuelling instability. Their demand: no more austerity. We need economies built on decent work, progressive taxation, public services, and social protection — not profits for the few.
“Workers reject a return to austerity and broken systems — we demand investment in people, decent work, and a just economy for all.” — Global Unions Statement
Righting the Economy: Towards a People’s Recovery – Edited by Marianna Leite and Matti Kohonen
This visionary book calls for nothing less than a complete transformation of the global economy. With feminist, decolonial, and community-led perspectives, it charts a course away from extraction and toward economies built on care, climate justice, and dignity.
“Economic recovery is not about growth at all costs — it’s about building systems that care for people and planet.” — Marianna Leite
The Human Cost of Public Sector Cuts in Africa: Austerity is Devastating Lives-ActionAid’s research exposes the brutal reality of IMF-backed austerity across Africa: overwhelmed health workers, collapsing schools, rising poverty, and deepening gender injustice. Their message is clear: austerity is dismantling essential public services — we need debt cancellation, progressive taxation, and investment in people, not cuts and corporate profits.
“Austerity is not a necessity — it’s a choice. And people are paying the price with their lives.” — ActionAid International
