New Orleans   The president of the World Bank, one of the premier world credit and developmental financing institutions created at Breton Woods, serves a 5 year, renewable term, and is currently occupied by former USA Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, appointed by George W. Bush.  Traditionally the post has been held by a US citizen because the US is the largest shareholder in the bank.  Luckily, this June marks the end of the five year term and allows a new president to emerge.

ACORN International and its affiliates have been pressing for more than a year through the Remittance Justice Campaign for there to finally be some real progress on capping remittance fees at no more than 5% of all transactions, which is a goal set by the G-8 top industrial countries and enabled by the World Bank.  We have also called on both the World Bank and these countries to seriously regulate remittances rather than continuing to allow predatory conditions to prevail that are fleecing the hard earned transfers of migrant workers and immigrant families.  Unfortunately given how voiceless this population is, their concerns have been shunted to the side over and over.  The World Bank, when confronted on the issue of remittances and doing what is necessary to achieve these reforms has repeatedly attempted to virtually disavow the existence of this goal and its own role.

ACORN International is demanding that President Obama and the leaders of other countries finally take the robbery of remittances seriously and make a precondition of the appointment of the next World Bank president be a real and robust commitment to achieving this 5% cap and supporting appropriate regulations of remittances.

To support this campaign, please sign our petition.