The proposals and promises put forth atthis week's G20 summit are being scrutinized and analyzed by many groups. One of them is the Jubilee USA Network, anorganization lobbying for debt reduction and elimination for poor nations.

Executive Director NeilWatkins says of the London summit, "Ithink overall it's a mixed bag. On the good side, I think the G20 reallyrecognized the fact that this is a global crisis and it's having impacts oncountries all around the world, from Africa to Latin America to Asia. So theyput forward large new sums of money, which urgently needed, and came togetheraround a common platform," he says.                   

 However,there are questions about the G20 proposals. Watkins says, "The devil is in thedetails, as always with these sorts of global initiatives, and there are acouple of concerns that we have and other civil society groups have beenraising. One is that nearly all of the response, all of the money beingprovided to developing nations, will be coming in the form of loans, ratherthan grants."

 Hecompares that to someone driving their car into a house and then giving thehomeowner a loan to repair the damages, instead of paying outright for therepairs. "The crises originated in rich countries and the effects are beingfelt by the poorest countries," he says.

TheJubilee USA Network fears the huge increase in loans could trigger a new debtcrisis in the developing world. Most of those loans would come from theInternational Monetary Fund (IMF).

"TheIMF has received a huge endorsement with this G20 announcement. More than $850billion will likely flow through the IMF following the G20 agreement. It'sfascinating because a little more than a year ago, the IMF in its last fiscalyear made loans totaling just over one billion dollars. So you have a hugeincrease, a huge investment of trust in an institution heavily criticized overthe past 10 or 20 years by many developing nations for some of the austerityconditions that it has placed," he says.

Watkinswould like to see reforms at the IMF before the loans are made. Asked about thelikelihood of that happening, he says, "There's a huge global demand…. I thinkthere are two main issues that civil society and even governments have beenhighlighting. One is the governance problem and the fact that the IMF, itsstructure of accountability and its board reflect the global economy of about20 or 30 years ago, not the current realities. And then the second issue is thesorts of policy advice that the IMF continues to give."

 Watkinssees some movement to discuss changing the IMF governing board and allow morerepresentation from emerging markets. But he says actual changes may still be afew years away.

 "Thesecond issue is that the policy advice that IMF gives has changed a little bit,but not significantly. And one of the things we're finding is that even in themost recent crisis loans the IMF has been giving, you're seeing some of thesame old policies that the IMF has been promoting for the past 20years…policies that restrict spending, that insist on higher interest rates --exactly the opposite sorts of policies that the rich countries and the UnitedStates are pursuing to respond to the current crisis," he says.Watkins calls it a"double standard," adding that the IMF needs to "provide more flexibility topoor countries to respond to the crisis in a way that benefits the people oftheir country."