[STATEMENT] JUNK the IMF-World Bank!
Statement of the International Migrants Alliance (IMA) on the IMF–World Bank Meetings in Bangkok, Thailand, 12–17 October 2026
As the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group (IMF-WBG) prepare to meet in Bangkok, Thailand from 12–17 October 2026, we call on all migrants and their families to rise up against the IMF-WBG, a tool that allows the U.S. and allied imperialists to plunder and exploit all working people.
The IMF-WBG has destroyed communities through wage suppression, heavy taxation and privatisation of the people’s public resources such as water, land, electricity, gas and transport. The rich landlords, corporations and governments borrow money from the IMF-WBG to fund projects for their own profit and revenue. The IMF-WBG then imposes exploitative conditions on these loans such as “Wage Policies”, “Value Added Tax” and “Structural Adjustment Programs” onto the working people to pay back the money, with huge interest added. Infrastructures such as train lines and ports are built using these loans; which the people build, pay to build, and pay to use.
Other conditions the IMF-WBG enforces are the liberalisation of trade, deregulation of the labour market, and privatisation of public assets which all contribute to loss of jobs and opportunities, quality health services, quality education and affordable goods. The IMF-WBG funds mining and extractive industries in rural areas to massacre communities and plunder natural resources. The IMF-WBG directly supports U.S. wars of aggression, with the WBG leading the “Board of Peace” and “Gaza Peace Fund” initiated by the U.S. government under Trump.
Local manufacturers and agricultural workers are forced to compete with the imported surplus products dumped by the imperialists when their own countries' markets are saturated from overproduction. The ruling government welcomes the foreign imperialists to dominate the national economy with their factories, plantations, mines and “economic zones” that reap huge profits for the imperialists and their local compradors. The imperialists suppress the development of national industries in the countries they exploit to ensure total dependence on foreign capital and goods.
We see the effects of IMF-WBG in our everyday lives:
Permanent jobs replaced by contractual, temporary or outsourced employment
Price hikes on gas, electricity, water, transportation and other privatised public services
Inadequate and inaccessible health services
Expensive and low-quality education
Loss of livelihoods among farmers, fishers and other rural producers
Increasing dependence on foreign capital, imported goods and multinational corporations
When we can no longer live in our homeland, where do we go?
Many of us move cities and across borders to become second-class citizens in a foreign land where we enter domestic work, construction, agriculture, manufacturing, logistics and other low-paid sectors. We are discriminated against and criminalised by the governments who, in most cases, are responsible for our displacement in the first place through the IMF-WBG. The World Bank’s concept of “migration for development” promotes bilateral and multilateral agreements between labour exporting and importing countries through the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD). The Global Forum on Remittances, Investment and Development (GFRID) promotes the monopolisation of remittances to fund their investor’s projects. Between IMF policies exploiting our home countries and the World Bank profiting off our labour and remittances, we are constricted and squeezed dry at every stage of our lives.
Behind every migrant worker is a story of forced migration. We are farmers whose land was taken, mothers who provide for our children, and youth who cannot find opportunities back home.
Our demand is simple: JUNK THE IMF–WORLD BANK!
We must destroy this imperialist machinery that controls our economy, our politics and our culture for their profit. We call on all workers across the Global South and North to fight on the streets against the IMF-WB this October.
Read our briefer on IMF–WBG and Forced Migration for more information.
