While the World Bank and IMF are constantly discouraging the use of subsidies in African countries in line with one of the tenets of the Washington Consensus, the developed countries have continued to use subsidies to stabilize their economy, particularly in critical sectors such as the agricultural sector.
For instance, the 2002 cotton subsidies to the US and  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  EU producers distorted world prices with the adverse loss in revenue to Africa being more than the total Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) debt relief initiative during the period.