What have the Bretton Woods Institutions done to women? A critical feminist perspective from the Global South
Fatma Khafagy
The Bretton Woods institutions, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), were established in 1944 with the aim of strengthening globalization, reaping and maintaining the benefits of global integration by strengthening international economic cooperation, restructuring the world economy and ensuring that the international economic and financial system avoids further economic crises. The IMF is primarily focused on macroeconomic stability and the management of international financial flows. It pays little attention to inequality for most of its history. The World Bank’s interest in development issues was supposed to have been from the outset focused on distribution issues.
Although disparities between and within countries were a prevalent feature of the post-war world, the Bretton Woods institutions were slow to incorporate this phenomenon into their thinking and discourse. While the World Bank’s interest in inequality has been addressed and ignored at various times, at the IMF, inequality was not a subject of extensive analysis or discussion until the first decade of the twenty-first century. Only in the last decade that action on inequality began to take a meaningful shape.
Both institutions have evolved into a body that monitors and controls the economic and financial policies in many countries, especially those in the developing world. Instead of leading to the development and prosperity of developing countries, the IMF policies and programs have failed miserably to lift them out of economic backwardness and social misery, leading them to severe crises and debt problems. Many of the policies designed by the Bretton Woods institutions have been criticized for not taking into account gender considerations and therefore failing to take into consideration the different impacts on women. Feminist critics are now consistently calling for the mainstreaming of the gender approach, which includes integrating gender analysis into all stages of policy design, implementation, and evaluation.
The critical feminist perspective highlights the need for these institutions to pursue a more gender-sensitive and inclusive economic policies. This perspective calls for transforming these institutions to better address gender inequality and promote women’s rights as a key factor to achieve sustainable and fair development.
The IMF and structural adjustment
The IMF economic structural adjustment programs (SAPs) are supposed to be designed to help countries facing severe economic crises. These programs typically include a set of economic policies aimed at restoring macroeconomic stability, encouraging economic growth, and improving the balance of payments. However, structural adjustment programs have been widely criticized, particularly from a critical feminist perspective. This perspective holds that IMF structural adjustment programs often fail to consider the impacts on gender because they focus primarily on macroeconomic indicators without addressing the social and gender dimensions of economic reforms. These programs exacerbate gender inequality and undermine women’s rights and economic opportunities. Therefore, there is a pressing need for more gender-sensitive economic policies that prioritize social justice, inclusivity and the well-being of all citizens.
Loans
One of the conditions imposed by the IMF to provide a country in need with a large loan is the implementation of structural adjustment policies and programs. IMF loans lead to violating the sovereignty of borrowing countries. Because these loans are burdened with harsh conditions in the name of structural adjustment. They are seen as a tool of imperialist domination and a hidden means of controlling the economic and foreign policies of developing countries. The indebtedness of the Global South has become a political and economic investment by the major powers, especially in Arabic countries that have become an arena for international and regional conflicts. Loans have become an investment to contain decision and political capacities as well as anti-imperialist political action in the world.
The IMF and the World Bank have for long relied on three pillars: Economic liberalization, privatization and austerity measures.
Economic liberalization
Economic liberalization has complex and multifaceted implications for women. While it can create opportunities for employment and economic empowerment, it also poses significant risks, particularly in terms of job security, working conditions, and the burden of unpaid care work. The critical feminist perspective emphasizes the importance of designing and implementing inclusive, equitable, and gender-sensitive economic policies, ensuring that the benefits of liberalization are widely shared and do not exacerbate inequality. Economic liberalization often leads to the expansion of the informal sector, with many women working in low-paid, insecure jobs without social protection. Deregulation and weak labor protections can lead to exploitative working conditions, especially in industries such as textiles and electronics, where women make up a large proportion of the workforce. Economic liberalization can exacerbate income inequality, as women, especially in low-income and marginalized groups, experience lower income growth than men. Liberalization policies may also promote occupational segregation, limiting women’s access to higher-paying jobs and sectors.
Privatization
Although privatization can bring economic benefits, it often has significant and disproportionate negative effects on women, particularly in terms of employment, access to basic services, and the burden of unpaid care work. The critical feminist perspective emphasizes the need for gender-sensitive privatization policies that protect women’s rights, promote equitable access to services, and support women’s economic and social well-being. By integrating these factors, policymakers can work towards a more inclusive and sustainable economic development.
Austerity measures
In many developing countries, IMF-imposed austerity measures led to significant cuts in public services, exacerbating the burden of providing care on women. Structural adjustment programs implemented by the IMF and the World Bank often include austerity measures, such as cuts in public spending on health, education, and social services. These cuts disproportionately affect women, who rely more on public services and often provide primary care.
The IMF has thus had a strong influence on economic and social policy-making in several Arab countries, clearly highlighting the austerity nature of these policies and their negative repercussions on social conditions in general, notably on social protection and commodity subsidies in particular. The IMF exercises direct control over broad government policies, making it a supranational institution that dominates many countries, especially those caught up in the debt trap.
Most common austerity measures in the Arab world take the shape through cutting affecting subsidies for basic goods, freezing public-sector wages, increasing consumption taxes, as well as limiting pension systems and social safety nets. This has led to negative effects on human development in many Arab countries that suffer from a significant shortage of human resources such as teachers, doctors, nurses and social workers. Freezing the wages and the failure to adjust them to match the inflation rate have also affected the purchasing power of public sector workers, especially in vital social sectors, leading to increased absenteeism, a growth of the informal sector and brain drain, all of which led to a significant decline in public services, especially in popular urban and rural areas.
Fatma Khafagy completed her graduate studies in the UK and obtained a PhD in Development Planning from University of London. She headed the gender program at UNICEF Egypt for fifteen years and established and headed the first Gender Equality Ombuds Office in Egypt for five years. She is a founder and member in national and regional feminist NGOs and networks such as the Alliance for Arab Women (founder and board member), the Arab Women Network for Parity and Solidarity “Tha’era” (former coordinator for 5 years) and she is since 2020 the co-convener of the Arab States CSOs & Feminist Network. She is a member of the gender expert group of North-South Center of Council of Europe.
She was selected in August 2019 as one of twenty world feminists to be a member in the civil society advisory group to the Core Group (Global CSAG) representing the Arab region. She works as senior gender consultant for several UN and donor agencies in the Arab countries.
She was selected in 2022/2023 as a member of the board of trustees of the National Dialogue of Egypt aiming at presenting the President of Egypt with draft laws and procedural reforms related to the political, the economic and the social pillars.