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Are our current economic systems deepening our ailing realities? Numerous countries are facing the socio-economic effects of COVID. Others are grappling with intertwined political, environmental, climate and economic crises. Are the economic systems we are enmeshed in helping or hindering us? What are the alternatives? Critically, what are the stories that do not make their way into the mainstream?
In this edition of Reflections on Our Countries, our contributors go far and wide to examine the imprint of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on our lives and our bodies.
Who does the IMF’s methods of ‘economic relief’ benefit? What are the grassroots implications of currency devaluations? What are the stories that go unheard in these conditions? How are women affected by the IMF’s decisions? How are women and gender-diverse communities reflected in the IMF’s policy decisions?
This edition of Reflections on Our Countries brings together contributions that grapple with these questions. Dive in.
- “For too long those of us in the Global Souths have been made to accept the economy as something that happens to us rather than a series of deliberate policy choices by elites (whether it is politicians, corporations, civil society, academics, etc.) that do not center people — especially those who are structurally excluded — and aim to maintain the existing world order,” writes Resurj Executive Coordinator Sachini Perera in their editorial.
- Sarah Kaddoura offers up an evocative, personal reflection examining the Lebanon Financial Crisis through her mother’s experiences as a refugee.
- “The IMF can never deliver gender justice, because it is not designed to do so: it is at the centre of a global economic system that extracts and exploits in explicitly colonial, gendered, racial and classist ways,” writes Sanyu Awori from Kenya and Marta Music from ex-Yugoslavia.
- What does 2023 hold for Sudan? Ronnie Vitalia reflects on the months that have passed and the political-economic impasse Sudan finds itself in. Ronnie wrote this in February 2023 and it continues to resonate as the crisis in Sudan intensifies at time of publishing.
- In Sri Lanka, Niyanthini Kadirgamar writes how “women are at the receiving end of both the crisis and the IMF solutions to the crisis”.
We are excited to have 3 reflective and timely pieces from Egypt.
- Heba Anees explores Egypt’s food security, writing about the changes women and families undergo due to the price hikes that have accompanied the IMF loan.
- What happens to prisoners in Egypt during an economic crisis? RESURJ member Nana Abuelsoud writes about prisoners and their families and reminds us that our movements and policies need to encompass multiple, vulnerable populations.
- Nada Wahba unpacks an age-old problem in the international development sector highlighting that “patch-up solutions to solving structural problems” are ineffective remedies.
- “Feminist collectives and organisations can play a critical role in forming such a people’s coalition for the global South. Only those of us dying under debt can bring an end to the continuous exploitation of our bodies, our lands and our waters,” writes Tooba Syed from Pakistan.
- Finally, in a piece on Qatar, Mariam Diefallah reminds us of new realities that now underpin changing contexts and of South-South power dynamics.
This edition was coordinated by Adilah Ismail. Translations by Nermeen Hegazy.