You may recall ONE’s campaign in April urging the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to use some of the profit from the planned sale of its gold to help the world’s poorest countries. In our proposal and the accompanying campaign, we asked the IMF to make $4-5 billion of that profit available in loans to low-income countries that will not regenerate unsustainable debt burdens on their economies.

The world’s poorest countries did not contribute to the conditions that created the global economic crisis, yet they will be worst-affected, and the international community has made very little provision to help see them through the crisis. Many countries will need to borrow but we must ensure that they do not once again fall into the debt spiral which will threaten the gains they’ve made in economic growth and force them to cut spending on crucial public services such as basic healthcare, agriculture and education.

On July 21st, Representative Barney Frank, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, wrote to Dominique Strauss-Khan, Managing Director of the IMF, to remind him that it is important to the United States that he push for consensus on this policy among IMF members. Representative Frank has been a strong champion of using IMF gold to help alleviate the most vulnerable countries’ burdens and expressed this as a U.S. policy goal in the 2009 supplemental appropriations bill, strengthening the hand of the Treasury Secretary to negotiate such an outcome. With 17% of the total shares, the United States is the largest shareholder in the IMF and there is good cause for optimism in American leadership at the IMF. We’ll keep you posted on the progress of this effort.

Click here to read Representative Frank’s Letter.

-Maryamu Aminu, Govt. Relations Team