Madam, - Brian Scott of Oxfam (February 13th) may be right in faulting the international community for its inadequate response to Africa's food shortages, but he is certainly wrong to blame the International Monetary Fund for contributing to the shortages.
The IMF encourages countries to maintain and increase social spending with the resources they have at their disposal - especially for nutrition, healthcare and education - and advises them, when resources are lacking, to economise on unproductive spending.
The challenges are always to find ways to increase in a sustainable way the money available for social spending and to use it effectively.
The IMF has a part to play. It supports the efforts of low-income countries to raise economic growth and accelerate poverty reduction through policy advice, low-interest lending and technical assistance.
The fund has also promoted debt relief for low-income countries, and in December, as part of the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative, cancelled the debts to it accumulated during 2004 by 19 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. But there is still a pressing need for increased aid. That is the responsibility of donor countries, which are committed to increasing their development assistance to poor countries to the equivalent of 0.7 percent of their GNP. So far, very few have attained this goal.
If there is a specific problem - for example, Malawi's recent need for higher spending on fertiliser - we will help address it flexibly. We also are prepared to work with donors and recipient countries to overcome the obstacles that emerge within a country's budget process - for example, Mozambique's need for more health workers.
Far from standing in the way of efforts to meet Africa's humanitarian needs, the IMF is playing its full part. - Yours, etc,
GRAHAM HACCHE, Deputy Director, External Relations Department, International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC, USA.