Resist and Fight Back!
Exposing over 80 years of economic colonialism by the IMF and World Bank
An APWLD Briefer on the IMF-WB Annual Meetings 2026
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an organisation of 190 countries, created at the same time as the United Nations (UN), and was established post-World War II to address so-called ‘reconstruction’ from the devastations of the war and to facilitate global monetary cooperation. Its creation emerged from the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944. At the same time, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (now World Bank or WB) was also founded. These two institutions, IMF and WB, are known collectively as the Bretton Woods Institutions (BWI). The IMF extends short-term loans to countries in financial crisis, usually with strict conditions of austerity measures and market reforms. On the other hand, WB extends loans for longer term infrastructure and development projects.
For over 80 years, the IMF-WB have been key architects and enforcers of the neoliberalisation of local economies with colonial patterns. Their policies are driven by powerful states that hold disproportionate voting power within these institutions, including the United States and G7 countries, allowing their economic and geopolitical agenda to prevail over human rights and genuine development priorities.
The Global South has long been facing decades of economic neoliberalisation engineered by the structural adjustment programmes, loan conditionalities, and privatisation policies pushed by the IMF-WB.
This week, the IMF-WB is having its annual Spring Meetings that aim to discuss the world’s financial architecture, as well as set the agenda for its Annual Meetings happening in October 2026 in Bangkok, Thailand. In time for this, we are launching our Primer on the upcoming IMF-WB Annual Meetings, which expresses grassroots women and feminist analysis and resistance against over 80 years of economic colonialism of the IMF-WB.
