Global Policy Forum

The Cologne G8 Summit and the Chains of Debt

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Jubilee 2000 Coalition
June 1999


Executive summary

The debts of the world's poorest countries are on the political agenda. The worldwide Jubilee 2000 movement has focused attention on the plight of people who bear the burden of debts that deprive them of basic rights to health, education and clean water - debts that entrench poverty and deepen injustice. The existing Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative has been exposed as being totally inadequate, with countries paying only slightly less than before on debt service. This failure has been compounded by the worldwide economic slump and a drop in commodity prices.

With mounting pressure on them to seriously address the problem, the leaders of the Group of Eight (G8) leading industrialised countries preparing for their June summit in Cologne competed with each other to promise improvements to the HIPC Initiative. Sums of $50bn, $70bn and more have been discussed. These are certainly large sums and far exceed what has been suggested before. But creditors have talked about writing off debt for more than twenty years. Are these latest proposals going to deliver a genuine exit from debt for the poorest countries? Will they help countries reach the internationally agreed 2015 development targets?

The Cologne offer

Based on intelligence gathered and new research undertaken in the build-up to the Cologne summit, this report reveals for the first time that the improved HIPC initiative to be agreed at Cologne will mean an average annual benefit of around $2.83 (£1.84) for each person in fifty-two indebted countries - enough to buy perhaps five loaves of bread, or one bag of rice, every year. These are small crumbs of comfort.

The message is clear: Cologne will not release substantial new resources for reducing poverty. The difference, if any, will be marginal. By largely cancelling only the debt, which is not actually being serviced, creditors ensure the deal is almost cost-free to them - and 'benefit-free' to their debtors.

No exit from debt

  • What is likely to be agreed at Cologne will not deliver new resources to the poor. The increased sums being talked about will still only write off what is not being paid anyway. Equally, there will be no change to the highly criticised means of assessing how much debt should be written off. Debt "sustainability" remains almost entirely based on a country's export earnings. We understand that the British government has been defeated in its attempt to persuade other creditors to use a formula for debt relief that would give debtor nations a genuine exit from debt relief. The so-called 'fiscal criterion' is based on real government budgets and looks at how much countries spend on debt service compared to that spent on health and education. Using it would produce different, bigger numbers on the amount of debt relief required for countries to become 'sustainable'.

  • Cologne is unlikely to promise any extra debt cancellation in the millennium year itself. At best, there will still be a minimum of three years to qualify and a further three years of strict economic conditions during which debt relief can be withdrawn. Unpayable debt has been debated by the lenders for years; rather than end the crisis, the lenders propose to continue the discussion while generations of children are still unable to go to school. The leaders are steadfastly refusing to seize the opportunity and deliver debt relief by the new millennium.

  • There have been no serious suggestions to change a procedure which gives creditors total power. Using the debt relief carrot to impose the structural adjustment policies of the IMF, which many believe increase poverty, is unacceptable to both Jubilee 2000 campaigners and governments of indebted countries. The intended purpose of debt relief is to benefit the poor. If the IMF refuses to minimise costs and maximise benefits to the poor, it should no longer be a gatekeeper for debt relief. The Jubilee 2000 alternative

    During the past year, Jubilee 2000 campaigns around the world have defined much more clearly the goals to be achieved. They stand in stark contrast to the little that is on offer.

  • The Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees the right to health and education. All donor countries have accepted the target of halving the number of people living in absolute poverty by the year 2015. Jubilee 2000 argues that money must be spent on basic health and education before debt service is paid, and that massive debt cancellation will be needed to meet these targets. Thus governments who continue to collect debt service from the very poor countries are violating human rights and reneging on their own promises to end poverty.

  • The Jubilee 2000 call is for debt cancellation in the year 2000. What we are being offered is another decade of discussion about how we might finally write off a little more of the debt that is not being paid. It promises to some day free a few people from debt slavery. It does not make the year 2000 a Jubilee year - a year of a new beginning.

  • Jubilee 2000 campaigners in impoverished countries stress the need to disconnect debt relief from strict IMF structural adjustment conditions. The United Nations and even the World Bank itself criticises these conditions. Campaigners accept the need for good governance and fiscal probity, but they object to the IMF being allowed to be prosecutor, judge and jury on their countries' performance, on the grounds that its policies do not produce economic growth or reduce poverty.

  • Jubilee 2000 campaigns in both rich and poor countries demand that money released by debt cancellation be used for poverty reduction and development, and they insist on conditions to ensure this. But they argue that detailed conditions imposed from the north have failed and will continue to do so. Instead, debt cancellation should be conditional on transparency and locally developed poverty action plans to use funds released. The Debt Review Body proposed by the Jubilee 2000 director, Ann Pettifor, introduces one way of setting up an independent and transparent process involving civil society for debt relief negotiations. The challenge

    Jubilee 2000 calls for:

  • cancellation by the year 2000

  • of the unpayable debt

  • owed by the world's poorest countries

  • under a fair and transparent process. Despite the grand rhetoric and praise for Jubilee 2000 from the world's leaders, their announcements do not meet these goals. Tiny reforms to HIPC do not resolve the problem.

    The G8 can yet confound its critics. It is still possible for the leaders of the most powerful nations to take a bold stand and cancel debt in the year 2000. To do so would be to take a huge leap forward, for progress and justice. But the time for small steps is long past. A billion people in the world's poorest countries can live no longer on a few crumbs of comfort. It is time to drop the debt.


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    FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.