An analysis of IMF pandemic support to Egypt, Nigeria, president has stated that “[c]ountries will need to Ecuador, and Cameroon found that while the IMF implement structural reforms” for the recovery and that secured transparency commitments that spurred all “[f]or those countries that have excessive regulations, four governments to publish information about their subsidies, licensing regimes, trade protection or spending and contracts, the amount, accessibility, and litigiousness as obstacles, we will work with them to quality of the disclosed information varied widely and foster markets, choice and faster growth prospects in none of the countries was it adequate for meaningful during the recovery.”36 oversight. In Nigeria, for instance, the government has 34 so far failed to disclose beneficial ownership information In the Philippines, the national health system has for companies receiving government funds for COVID-19 suffered decades of neglect, compounded by corruption response, and has not adequately published data on how and neoliberal policies favoring the privatization COVID-19 funds have been spent. and commercialization of public services. The ADB’s 35 pandemic response overlooked this reality and instead used the same neoliberal logic to diagnose the challenges IFIs’ neoliberal prescriptions made countries more vulnerable to the pandemic, yet the institutions continue to push policy reforms and conditionalities that harm those living in poverty or otherwise marginalized. facing the health system as simply a lack of finance. Researchers point out that without a governance system, the influx of ADB financing didn’t deliver promised results. Instead, they cite massive corruption around government procurement of medical supplies, unexplained losses of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation, health care workers who were not paid their risk allowance, and inadequate government hospitals.37 In Mozambique, the country has a long history of Many developing and middle income countries went IFI-imposed austerity. Today, World Bank investment into the pandemic already in a state of vulnerability born is equivalent to the national budget. Researchers out of neoliberal prescriptions and debt obligations that describe how the World Bank’s attempt to outsource hollowed out the public sector, privatized basic services, social protection payment systems to private financial eliminated social protection programs, flexibilized service providers can be seen as an expropriation of labor markets and enabled corporate capture. IFIs state functions, coupled with the privatization of state have neither taken responsibility for these actions and assets. They also describe how the Bank attempted to the resulting poverty and inequality, nor have they use the pandemic to fast-track the collateralization changed course. Today IFIs vigorously promote the of land, a move that would be devastating for women “private sector first” paradigm, focusing on leveraging and other poor or marginalized farmers. As the private investment rather than supporting countries in researchers conclude, the COVID-19 pandemic has rebuilding state capacity. created an opportunity for the World Bank to fast-track financialization under the guise of transparency, The World Bank and other IFIs have utilized the efficiency, and effectiveness38 pandemic and their outsized influence on cash-strapped nations to secure the adoption of policy reforms and austerity measures that actually harm women, the poor, and other marginalized groups. The World Bank 34 “IMF: Scant Transparency for Covid-19 Emergency Loans: AntiCorruption Measures a Step Forward, but Weak Implementation”, Human Rights Watch, March 30, 2021, https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/03/30/imf-scant-transparencyCOVID-19-emergency-loans. 35 “Between Hunger and the Virus: The Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on People Living in Poverty in Lagos, Nigeria”, Human Rights Watch and Justice & Empowerment Initiatives - Nigeria, 2021, https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/07/28/between-hunger-and-virus/ impact-COVID-19-pandemic-people-living-poverty-lagos#_ftn269. 36 Remarks by World Bank Group President David Malpass on G20 Finance Ministers Conference Call on COVID-19, March 23, 2020, available at https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/ speech/2020/03/23/remarks-by-world-bank-group-president-davidmalpass-on-g20-finance-ministers-conference-call-on-COVID-19. 37 Freedom from Debt Coalition, December 2021.Philippine antiCOVID19 fight: Where is the caring for the people?”, Freedom from Debt Coalition, December 2021. 38 Edgar Barroso, Ruth Castel-Branco and Bonaventura Monjane, “Fast-tracking Financialization: International Financial Institutions’ Responses to the Covid-19 Pandemic,” (ALTERNACTIVA - Acção Pela Emancipação Social), November 2021. WHERE DID INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS’ COVID-19 FUNDING GO? 10