Quiet prevails at IMF meetings

Signs of peace prevailed at the IMF meetings

David Schepp BBC News Online North America business reporter

This year's spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank were characterised by unusual calm.

The meetings were pretty sleepy

It was a yawning spectacle that allowed Washington's spring weather to take centre stage, providing far more drama than any speech inside or protest outside the IMF meeting hall.

Torrid heat midweek yielded to severe thunderstorms and chillier temperatures by the time the meetings officially got underway on Saturday, leaving visitors in search of umbrellas instead of shade.

The fervour and unity usually exhibited by demonstrators at such events seemed lost to myriad issues even as thousands converged upon the White House, the World Bank and other posts.

Alongside the well-trodden anti-globalisation message, other complaints were voiced, including opposition to the US war on terror and Israel's incursion into the West Bank and ranting over supposed US support of a "school of terrorism" in Colombia.

A better place

The lack of confrontation stood in contrast to November's Ottawa meetings, held under the grey cloud of the attacks of 11 September, where protesters were nonetheless volubly combative.

But over the weekend in Washington, the blue mood that prevailed among world finance officials last autumn in Canada yielded to sunny news about the world economy.

Finance ministers expressed unified optimism for the global economic recovery, while voicing concern over the ailing economies of Japan and Argentina and worry over rising oil prices.

Dutch officials backed an education scheme

They also agreed to find ways to cut-off funding for terrorists groups and to promote sound policies that stimulate economic growth and financial stability, in order to avert crises such as those seen in Asia in the late '90s.

The ministers also sought to build upon the good feeling generated at last month's United Nations meetings in Mexico to further solidify commitments to development in poor nations.

See you in September

Even African leaders, who generally are not shy about expressing opposition to IMF and World Bank policies, brightly popped up to say the world was a better place with the Bretton Woods institutions than without them.

The lack of discord inside the meeting hall may have been the reason a small initiative to better education prospects for the world's children seemed utterly newsworthy.

On Sunday, the World Bank rolled out a scheme to achieve one of the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDG) of ensuring primary school education for all the world's children.

The plan calls for instituting pilot programmes in 10 countries to assess which actions work in getting - and keeping - kids in school. It already has the backing of government of Denmark.

What has yet to be worked out is how the $16bn (£11bn) initiative will be financed. World Bank officials will pick up the issue in September when they are scheduled meet again.

Meanwhile, activists opposed to IMF and World Bank policies have five months to gear up for another round of meetings in Washington.

Chances are their criticisms won't be levied at schemes to boost "education for all".