Global Policy Forum

The new slavery in Africa, which results from the burden of the debt and the enforcement of structural adjustment policies, is an unprecendented shame at the beginning of the 21st century. In an overwhemling majority of African countries debt service absorbs more resources than those allocated for education and health combined. It should be obvious that each cent spent on paying for the cost of public debts is lost in the urgent fight against poverty, illiteracy, malaria, AIDS and other wide spread diseases, some of which could be easily cured.

The structural ajustment policies imposed by the World Bank and the IMF have largely contributed to put many African countries in a deep economic crisis : they exacerbate social and gender inequality, they spread poverty on a large scale, they imperil the environment and access to food and water, they fuel armed conflicts and create conditions that are favourable to recolonizing the continent through privatization and liberalization policies.

Like all previous gestures, the initiatives taken in Cologne (June 1999) and in Cairo (April 2000) do not offer any actual solution. It is in light of this predicament that a worldwide movement has emerged calling for the cancellation of the Third World debt and for the rejection of adjustment policies that have only contributed to generate more poverty and regression wherever they have been implemented.

In most cases the debt was incurred by non democratic governments that were often supported by industrialized countries. The borrowed money was used to finance repressive, if not genocidal policies (as in Rwanda in 1994) and never helped the people of the indebted countries. The embezzlement of public loans was systematically organized in full knowledge of public and private lenders in industrialized countries. In terms of international law the 'odious' debt that results from such loans is invalid.

In the specific case of sub-Saharan Africa, an irrefutable historical argument in favour of unconditional cancellation is that what is owed to western "creditors" is only a tiny portion of what European have stolen there since the 15th century. From slavery that robbed the continent of 60 to 100 millions of its inhabitants forcibly taken to the Americas, to colonization followed by the current recolonization, Africa has already paid more than enough.

Today, the World Bank, which is largely responsible for the disaster of the last thirty years, acknowledges that the standards for human development continue to deteriorate in Africa. The real income per capita has steadily decreased over this period. In several African countries, life expectancy, which is hardly 46, is dramatically falling as a consequence of abject poverty.

Yet the IMF and the WB still insist on imposing structural adjustments and debt repayments through the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC 's Initiative). The only change is at the level of the discourse : "The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP)" has replaced "Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs)".

For all these reasons, an immediate and unconditional cancellation of Africa 's external debt is no more than an ethical demand for social justice. It would free resources that are urgently needed for investments in productive sector (to provide jobs for younger generations), in health, in education, in culture, for women's emancipation, for a better future for the young generation, for the eradication of poverty and the preservation of the environment and biodiversity.

Africa must simultaneously break with adjustment programs, that are largely responsible for its current catastrophic situation. The stress on budget austerity in the name of an alleged "macroeconomic equilibrium" and forced State's disengagement have translated into a curtailment of public spending, which in turn, has led to recession, unemployment and poverty.

Liberalization and privatisation policies have contributed to stifle national enterprises and to the takeover of African economies by western transnational corporations, dubbed "strategic partners". The free-trade creed has undermined policies aimed at achieving food security for Africa. Cultural creation is imperiled as a result of a wild competition from cultural products from industrialized countries. It is only by breaking with such policies that the continent will have a greater control over its destiny by recovering its autonomy in formulating its own development policies.

African people cannot be expected to watch passively the sacrifice of whole generations and a new colonization of the continent that hides its true nature. This is why African organizations and personalities are determined to rely on popular support to participate in a global mobilization, which has found a new impetus with the "Jubilee 2000" campaign, involving as it does millions of people throughout the world and collecting over 20 million signatures that were presented to the G-7 leaders in Cologne in June 1999. But the "Jubilee 2000" campaign ends this year. It is thus urgent to take stock of what has been achieved and review the limits of the campaign in order to carry on the struggle for the cancellation of Africa's debt, the rejection of adjustment policies and the elaboration of policies promoting a sustainable human development.

The present appeal follows upon the Declarations of Accra (Jubilee 2000 - April 1998), Lusaka (Jubilee 2000 - May 1999), Johannesburg (Jubilee South - November 1999) and Yaoundi (January 2000), as well as on converging initiatives, such as that of ATTAC (Paris - June 1999), the protest in Seattle, the Women's World March in 2000 and the Bangkok appeal (February 2000), all of them calling for the cancellation of Third World countries' debt.

Meeting in Amsterdam, from 4 to 7 April, we call for an international and panafrican meeting in Dakar, from 12 to 17 December, 2000 that will be named + DAKAR 2000 : from Resistance to Alternatives ;. Its objectives will be:

1. to assess Africa's debt at the end of the year 2000, after the Jubilee campaign and to evaluate the impact of bilateral and multilateral solutions for debt "relief";

2. to review the economic, social and human effects of structural adjustment policies, focusing on key sectors, such as education, health, employment, income distribution, traditional farming ;

3. to devise short-, medium- and long-term strategies in order to a) achieve the cancellation of the debt and the rejection of adjustment programs, b) contribute to the implementation of a development policy based on the needs of the people. This implies new forms of mobilization and new ways of distributing wealth as well as new financing methods, such as the recovery of illicitly-acquired wealth, a tax on international financial transactions, fair trade and taxation policies.

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