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afrol.com, 7 September - Ignoring instructions from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, few African governments have actually consulted the trade unions when preparing their anti-poverty plans for submission to the two Bretton Woods institutions. That was the claim made by most of the trade union leaders from 40 African countries meeting in Casablanca for a regional conference on the promotion of 'social dialogue'. Strongly criticised by the trade union organisations for the damaging effects of their structural adjustment programmes, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have recently focussed their attention on combating poverty, calling on governments who submit requests for assistance to them to hold prior consultations with civil society. Applications for assistance have duly been submitted, but in most countries there has been no consultation, while in the best of cases it has been superficial. "At the end of the war" said René Serge Banchard, a trade union leader from Congo-Brazzaville, "the government called on us to help relaunch the economy. But there has been no contact for the last year, and despite moves from our side, the government refuses to negotiate. The anti-poverty programme was done without us." In Burkina Faso, the trade union organisations have been clearly sidelined, complained Abdoulaye Yra, who has been asking the government in vain to meet them. In Rwanda, consultations on the submission to Washington were "superficial" said François Munrangira, leader of the CESTRAR national centre. "We were called upon simply to be faced with a fait accompli, the submission been signed and sealed". Delegates from Uganda, Ghana and Angola also spoke of their governments' failure to take their obligations towards the IMF seriously. The trade unionists hope that the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and its African regional organisation, AFRO, the organiser of the Casablanca conference, will support their pressure on the African governments to rethink their approach. Pressure should also be brought to bear on the international financial institutions, however. "The IMF and the World Bank have proved they can be very demanding when it comes to meeting the conditions for implementing their structural adjustment programmes. Now they must show the same determination in making governments meet their obligation of consulting civil society" stated an AFRO representative. The consultation question will be raised in the final statement by the Conference to be adopted today, and which is intended to serve as a basis for the relaunching of social dialogue in Africa.
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