IMF, World Bank Discuss Global AIDS Policy in ‘Unprecedented’ Meeting with African Leaders
To combat Africa's "biggest crisis" -- AIDS -- African leaders will need to develop their own ideas and proposals, officials from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank concluded after meeting with 12 African leaders in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, the Associated Press reports. As part of an "unprecedented tour" of Africa, IMF Director Horst Koehler and World Bank President James Wolfensohn said that past economic policies toward Africa had failed and that they "vowed to seek a new approach" (Associated Press, 2/24). Koehler added that the IMF would no longer use a "one size fits all" policy regarding African countries (Agence France-Presse, 2/25). He added, "The listening approach ... is an admission that nobody is perfect. Clearly, we have also made some mistakes in the past" (Associated Press, 2/24). Callisto Madavo, one of the World Bank's vice-presidents for Africa, said, "I was gratified to see that discussions around AIDS, about which some of us are very passionate, received much attention by African leaders. They were clearly more aware and ready to do more to fight it than ... in 1998" (Esipisu, Reuters, 2/25).
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