Breaking the Chains of Debt in Africa: Finding Freedom Through Jubilee
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Jubilee was a time to restore equity and balance in the community so that no family would have to remain in poverty for more than a generation. Jubilee sought release from the bondage created by debt and loss of land. Jubilee recognized that all belongs to God. Thus the release of debts that cost life and dignity became a way of acknowledging our Creator as a just God.
Inspired by this Jubilee proclamation and vision of justice, millions of individuals in the late 90’s joined a modern-day Jubilee movement for debt cancellation. Twenty four million people worldwide signed the historic Jubilee 2000 petition and Jubilee campaigns were launched in more than sixty countries. Religious groups and people of faith took the lead in calling for debt cancellation of highly indebted and impoverished countries.
The international Jubilee campaign has leveraged $34 billion in debt cancellation for impoverished nations. The United States Congress has given more than $700 million to fulfill our commitment to debt relief. This first step in Jubilee’s mission of debt cancellation has:
• more than doubled school enrollment in Uganda, where 6.5 million children are now attending primary school--up from 2.7 million in 1997,
• vaccinated half a million children against killer diseases in Mozambique, and,
• enabled Uganda to redirect funds freed from debt towards AIDS prevention programs, which has resulted in a decrease in the rate of new HIV infections from 25 percent in 1992 to under 10 percent today.
How much have the World Bank and IMF given for debt relief?
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates the cost of providing assistance to some 34 countries under the Heavily Indebted Poor Country Initiative (HIPC) to be $33 billion. Bilateral donors will cover half of this expense, with most of the rest coming from multilateral lenders.
In an effort to help fund the multilateral portion of the cost, the International Financial Institutions have established the HIPC Trust Fund, which is administered by the World Bank. So far, pledges to this fund total $2.6 billion, and about $1 billion of these pledges have already been paid.
The principal donors to the HIPC Trust Fund are precisely the same bilateral creditors (wealthy nations) who have already agreed to cancel all bilateral debt owed to them. In short, the World Bank and IMF have not followed the example of the Group of 7 creditors (made up of the wealthiest seven nations), who are effectively paying twice for debt relief.
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