From Mr Rick Rowden.

Sir, If the International Monetary Fund is projecting that the world economy is now entering a major downturn in the face of the most dangerous shock in mature financial markets since the 1930s, and that “that global growth was likely to slow to 3.9 per cent growth in 2008 and 3 per cent in 2009, sharply down from 5 per cent growth last year” (“IMF forecasts global slowdown”, FT.com, October 8), then why is it still making its assistance to low-income countries conditional on the adoption of tighter fiscal and monetary policies?