International Financial Institutions

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America has had a long history of aiding countries in need, advancing development and promoting democracy all over the world often working with international financial institutions to achieve these various goals. Institutions that collaborate with the U.S. such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) have long played an integral part in international development goals over the past 60 years. The way in which assistance was distributed greatly changed during the 1940s after WWII and continues to be a major force in internationals relations. These institutions were created to specifically aid economic growth, but when implementing the numerous policies these organizations have not always been entirely successful.

A prime example of this type of failure was the development and implementation of an economic aid system, named the Washington Consensus, which was implemented in the 1970s and will be examined in detail in later chapters. Countries such as Argentina and Bolivia suffered greatly for many years because, “what had been sold in the early 1980s as a foolproof ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution was shown to be very uneven”(Dunkerly, 2008: 310). Many blame Latin America’s large economic problems from the past 20 years on the different economic development models and especially the Washington Consensus, which will be analyzed throughout this paper. Before examining the Washington Consensus and its affects on Argentina and Bolivia is important to understand how these organizations began and what the primary objectives were in this region. By observing these origins and one is able to see why policies such as the Washington Consensus were eventually a...

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