DRAFT IFIwatchnet October Newsletter
From IFIwatchnet Wiki
- Editorial
The World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Annual Meetings are coming soon! This year the meetings will be held over a 3-day period, from October 20 to 22, at the WB and IMF headquarters in Washington D.C.
Civil society groups are organising events starting on Wednesday, October 17. Also, from October 14 to 21, various citizen actions and mobilizations will take place worldwide, as part of the Week of Global Action Against Debt and IFIs.
These meetings will be the first for Robert Zoellick as President of the World Bank, and officials will no doubt be hoping that attention will be focused on his plans rather than on memories of the crisis that shook the Bank at April's semi-annual meetings, when pressure mounted on former President Paul Wolfowitz to resign (he finally did, with the resignation taking effect on June 30). At the IMF, Rodrigo Rato, Managing Director since 2004, announced his early resignation (two years ahead of schedule) earlier this year; his successor, former French Finance Minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was officially approved two weeks ago, and will be taking office on November 1. The process by which Strauss-Kahn (widely known by his initials, DSK) once again proved controversial, with the Europeans again asserting their right to designate the Managing Director, all while, for the third time in a row, acknowledging that they should really give up their prerogative. IFIwatchnet's IMF Leadership blog has a wealth of commentary on the distortions of the process (read updated comments on IMF leadership selection process blog). Please check it out, and share your own views.
If you are attending the Washington Meetings, please list yourself in the Who's in Town list, use the 2007 Annual Meetings WB-IMF blog to reflect on your personal experiences and view the list of events where actions of Civil Society will take place: 2007 Annual Meetings of WB and IMF
Check IFIwatchnet regularly during the annual meetings season and keep yourself informed with day to day updates and analysis!
- Special features for AGM
An exhaustive list of CSO colleagues visiting Washington during the AM. Are you planning to be in town for the AM? Please add you name and contact details to the list. Also, click the print friendly button at the top of the page to obtain a paper copy.
An up to date blog on events and breaking news.
A complete calendar of civil society events: roundtables, workshops, discussions, panels, mobilisations, etc. Please add your AM related event! All you have to do is mark "2007 Annual Meetings WB - IMF (Washington D.C, October 20-22)" in the "blog topic or event" field when adding the event.
All the latest analysis and press releases from civil society on the issues being discussed at the meetings.
- Anonymous forms to submit documents, contactsand events (subject to admin approval before being published)
Everyone can contribute to IFIwatchnet. Encourage your colleagues to use the "submit content" function or request a password, we would like to hear diverse opinions!
- News: Promotional leaflet for IFIwatchnet ready!
A new, updated, promotional leaflet had been designed for IFIwatchnet, and is now ready for your use. The leaflet is available in two coloured versions. We hope to see this leaflet widely distributed in Washington at the time of the annual meetings, and at any other place where IFIwatchers are gathered. .
IFIwatchnet does not have funding for translation and printing at the moment. We hope that members will be inspired to do this. We are especially eager to see translations to other languages. Please let us know how you are able to help. We will provide any assistance we can.
The leaflet, however, has been designed for easy and cheap printing, in colour or in black-and-white.
The materials are available for downloading here In case you haven't received them and wish to have an electronic copy, please write to info@ifiwatchnet.org, and we will immediately send them.
- IFIwatchnet technical tip: Blog topic function
Regional Animators and Steering Group members can now add new topics to the blogs. To create a new blog topic, you should use the "Taxonomy" command in the right column menu, and click on "Add terms" in the "Blog Topic or Event" line. Please, be careful using this command, as it could affect the appearance and performance of the whole site (especially deleting items). Editing the corresponding item in the list (clicking over the Edit link), you can add a description of the blog.
- Statistics (top five most accessed documents, to be prepared)
- Internet technical tips (waiting for contributions!)
