The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has pushed borrowing countries to make deeper austerity cuts over the past decade, charity organisation Oxfam has said.
Oxfam has urged the IMF to consider other approaches. It wants the fund to reduce its reliance on austerity measures.
The organisation warned that austerity can reduce government spending on essential public services.
“These cuts undermine vital spending on public services – from health care to education and housing – that protect low-income communities,” Oxfam said.
Oxfam said the annual austerity cuts required under IMF programmes have increased in recent years.
The charity said the median cuts rose from 0.21 percent of GDP between 2012 and 2017.
The figure increased to 0.85 percent between 2018 and 2025.
Oxfam also said the IMF had weakened safeguards for social spending in some lending programmes.
The organisation expressed concern about a possible return to policies used during the 1980s.
Those policies included structural adjustment programmes.
Oxfam warned that the IMF could demand major public spending cuts at the start of loan programmes.
The organisation wants governments to introduce such cuts gradually. It said countries should spread the reductions over several years.
Nabil Abdo, Oxfam’s international senior policy adviser, criticised the approach.
He compared frontloaded austerity to taking a harmful substance all at once.
“Frontloading austerity is like asking countries to swallow a whole bottle of poison that we already know is harmful in small doses,” Abdo said.
Oxfam urged the IMF to ensure its lending programmes do not increase inequality.
The organisation also called for alternatives to austerity.
It said such policies should help countries manage their finances without putting essential public services at risk.
The debate comes amid concerns about the impact of international lending programmes.
Critics have raised questions about their effect on low-income communities and public spending.
