A report by the International Monetary Fund’s Independent Evaluation Office has found that out of every $10 of foreign aid investments in sub-Saharan Africa, only $3 can actually be spent on development. “What’s disturbing is that the real-world fight against AIDS, illiteracy, and hunger is being undermined by unnecessarily restrictive IMF policies,” said ActionAid Senior Policy Analyst Rick Rowden. IMF-supervised governments are required to use foreign aid to primarily increase international currency reserves and repay domestic debt. “This confirms our concern that the IMF is blocking the spending of desperately-needed aid. Letting so much aid go unspent is certainly not what donors and aid advocates have in mind,” Rowden added. (Source: IMF Preventing Countries From Spending Foreign Aid/PR Newswire)
