AS the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Lima, Peru ended at the weekend, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has charged international financial institutions to adopt policies that could counter the global economic slowdown.

Just on Tuesday last week, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) corrected downwards its biannual economic growth forecasts for the seventh consecutive time and confirmed that 2015 will mark the lowest rate of global growth since the Great Recession of 2008-2009. The IMF also declared that risks of further deterioration, including threats of recession, are ‘more pronounced’ than they were only a few months ago.

The General Secretary of ITUC, Sharan Burrow, in a statement said: “Already two large countries, Brazil and Russia, are in recession. Because of this and reduced growth in China, recession could spread to other countries. The G20’s ‘Brisbane Action Plan’, where on the basis of IMF- and OECD-designed models countries were supposed to see their growth rates increase by two per cent, seems to be running in reverse gear since growth is slowing. The IFIs have to take the recession threats seriously and promote investments in social and physical infrastructure, including in green technologies, to reduce the global jobs gap.”

Burrow blamed the IMF in particular for having made the shift to austerity five years ago, contributing to the steady deterioration of global growth since then.