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Highlighting Austerity, Gender and Tax Issues at IMF, World Bank Spring Meetings 2019

In April 2019, Kate Donald (the Director of CESR’s Economic and Social Policy program) attended the IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington, DC. While there, she shared CESR’s research in several meetings with IMF officials, including work on the relationship between tax policy and gender equality, along with civil society partners and allies.

On April 10th, CESR hosted a Civil Society Policy Forum event with Eurodad, Wemos Foundation, INESC, ActionAid, and Bretton Woods Project. The event, titled "Austerity and the right to health: the IMF’s role in expanding fiscal space for public spending" shared a range of research on the devastating impacts of austerity on health nationally and internationally, and questioned the IMF’s role in promoting "fiscal consolidation" despite these consequences. Kate spoke on the panel, sharing CESR’s findings with partners in Brazil, Egypt and Spain, and highlighted the important work being done by human rights advocates including CESR pushing for acknowledgement of—and accountability for—the ravages of austerity.