The IMF’s impact in countries

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Argentina

Argentina is the Fund’s largest debtor – a debt the IMF could only deem “sustainable” based on projecting a major expansion of Argentina’s fossil extraction in the Vaca Muerta oil and gas megaproject, locking the country into potential stranded assets, commodity dependence, and social-environmental conflicts.

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Credit: APMDD Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan’s high climate vulnerability and devastating floods in 2022 were no obstacle to IMF-imposed austerity and an unrealistic debt sustainability assessment that underestimated climate risks, poverty impacts, and long-term investment needs.
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Credit: Fred Mutune/Xinhua

Kenya

IMF-advised tax hikes on everyday Kenyans in 2023 have galvanized the country in nationwide protests and a new youth movement against rising inflation, living costs, and underfunded public services – calling for a decolonisation of the Kenyan economy.
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Credit: Oliver Kornblihtt / Mídia NINJA. Retrieved from Flickr

Egypt

In Egypt, the elimination of energy subsidies, a greenwashing strategy and fiscal policies at the IMF’s behest, accelerated inflation and ballooning debt service payments. This deepened inequality and poverty, while helping prop up the country’s autocratic leadership.
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Credit: Karen Toro/Climate Visuals Countdown.

Ecuador

Ecuador had exceptionally high excess deaths under the Covid-19 pandemic, having severely cut down its healthcare workforce under IMF austerity conditions. Targeted social assistance suffered delays and bureaucratic hurdles. High debt and fiscal consolidation requirements will keep the country extracting oil.
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Credit: Moudir Neddi / Wikimedia Commons

Morocco

Forced to take up loans in the absence of sufficient public international climate finance, Morocco refused to implement an IMF-conditioned fuel tax increase in the middle of a socio-economic-climate crisis and successfully replaced it with a more progressive and environmentally effective polluter tax.

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