• Debt relief and growth

Debt relief and growth

Although progress has been made on Debt since the issue was pushed to the top of the G8 agenda in 1998  ($88bn of debt has been cancelled) this paper from the Jubilee Campaign asserts that far more needs to be done in order to effectively tackle global poverty.

Indeed, the Campaign asserts that debt cancellation can irrevocably alter human lives - according to the World Bank, countries that received multilateral debt cancellation increased their social spending by an average of 45% between 1999 and 2003:

• Malawi can now train nearly 4,000 new teachers each year
• Zambia has scrapped health fees
• the Ugandan government has abolished primary school fees
• 70% of births (up from 40%)  in Bolivia are now attended by a health professional.

So what needs to improve? The authors assert that there is a need for:

• debt cancellation in the region of $400 billion for around 100 countries if they are to meet their people’s basic needs
  
• a new definition of ‘sustainable’ debts, in terms of human need, used as the basis for cancelling unpayable debts
  
• the auditing of poor country debts and the cancellation of those that have resulted from irresponsible lending
  
• the participation in debt cancellation processes of  those creditors who have been least engaged in the process so far, especially commercial creditors
  
• an end to the imposition of economic policy conditions attached to debt relief - the World Bank imposes strict economic guidelines to qualify for debt initiatives which can in fact hinder governments ability to provide basic services
  
• the creation and implementation of enforceable criteria for responsible lending.
  
  

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