The main objective of the G20 meeting was to save global capitalism. The emphasis on more regulations, the attacks on tax havens, the reference to the “moralization of capitalism” all converge toward the same objective: restore trust in global capitalism and some of the legitimacy it has lost in the eyes of the general public.

One of the most remarkable decisions of the G20 is to triple the IMF sources in order to increase its lending capacity to “poor” and middle-income countries. If this decision may save the institution from financial bankruptcy, it cannot, however, save it from moral and intellectual bankruptcy. In fact, the world financial crisis is a further illustration of the abject failure of the policies advocated by this institution along with the World Bank and the WTO. .

So tripling the IMF sources is not good news for Africa because it will only give the institution more power to continue imposing the same failed and ruinous policies. It is a new debt cycle that will start with the loans the IMF will be making with these resources. For Africa, the IMF is part of the problem, not of the solution. Therefore, any move aimed at strengthening it is not in the interest of Africa.

As expected, the G20 has failed to rise to the challenge of proposing structural changes in the world monetary, financial and trading system. In some respects, the Stiglitz Commission has made bolder and more interesting proposals to respond to the crisis. However, those proposals remain somehow within the confines of global capitalism.

But the genuine solutions to the current multiple world crises lie in the shift in paradigm. This is one of the messages sent by the tens of thousands of protesters who jammed the streets in London for two straight days. They not only denounced the horrors and crimes of global capitalism but also stressed the need to move toward alternative policies which would put people at their center, not profit and greed.