2000 - Special Washington & New-York

Strengthened by the mobilization of millions of women around the world, on October 16, the international delegation of the World March of Women in the Year 2000 will meet with the president of the World Bank, Mr. James Wolfensohn, and the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Mr. Horst Köhler.

The World March of Women and a multitude of other international movements denounce the impact of current economic globalization on the majority of the planet's inhabitants, both women and men. In particular, they denounce the unprecedented global rate of impoverishment, especially of women, and all forms of violence against women.

World March delegates will describe, based on their own experience, how IMF and WB policies contribute to the present disorder of the world, affecting women in particular. Indeed, it is women who pay a high price for current neoliberal globalization. It is women who suffer most notably the consequences of the debt and structural adjustment programs. It is women who assume, by our unpaid work, the impact of privatization and States' budget cuts in key sectors such as education, health, social assistance, food aid, etc. It is women who work in the free economic zones in conditions of veritable slavery. Our insecure economic conditions leave us more vulnerable to all forms of violence. It is women-particularly girls-who are recruited into sex tourism schemes, sex trafficking and prostitution. Women are the poorest of the poor.

The World March of Women wants to question and confront the leaders of the IMF and WB on the economic and political foundations of their programs and projects, in other words: faith in neoliberal capitalism as the sole path for growth, leaving no room for diversity or pluralism in models for development. Delegates will also emphasize the role of patriarchal beliefs and systems in influencing the policies of these institutions.

Let us be clear, however. We are not against globalization; on the contrary: we want globalization based on equitable wealth distribution, equality between women and men, respect for different cultures and for the environment.

Millions of women actively participating in the World March are calling for an end to structural adjustment and demanding structural transformation instead.

A new social program (at the local, regional, national and international levels) can be developed based on women's and citizens' movements, the gains of the international community-especially the charters, conventions, and protocols calling for the respect of human rights that must be ratified and effectively implemented-and the innovative and alternative solutions that have already been adopted in the context of the anti-poverty struggle and the movement to end violence against women.

The World March of Women, by forming a huge international network uniting the already existing women's movements around the globe, is thus contributing in its own way to the construction of a new global architecture. Poverty and violence against women and children are not "natural" phenomena: they have been politically, economically, culturally and socially constructed. It is therefore up to us to eliminate them by working simultaneously on the political, economic, cultural and social fronts.

It is urgently necessary to examine paths other than the ones already taken, that are maintaining inequality and violence against women.

We have come to meet the decision-makers of these international financial institutions to let them know that we are determined, through the strength of our global mobilization, and our marches in the villages and cities of our countries, to make real and lasting change.

And we have not come alone! For many years now, and with great determination and tenacity, many international movements searching for realistic and effective alternatives have been standing with women's movements everywhere, to protest the current system of economic globalization and demand major structural transformation to create another kind of globalization, characterized by solidarity and equality.

The World March of Women is calling on the WB and the IMF for: