JUBILEE USA NETWORK * JUBILEE DEBT CAMPAIGN UK
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – October 10, 2008
CONTACT: Neil Watkins, Jubilee USA, +1 202 421 1023 (m); Nick Dearden, Jubilee UK,+44(0)7932 335464
Fast Track for Wall Street Debt Relief, Slow Lane for Liberia, Haiti
Campaigners call for World Bank to call off ‘outrageous’ postponement of promised debt relief
WASHINGTON, DC and LONDON -- International debt campaigners have today called on rich country finance ministers meeting at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund annual meetings in Washington DC to end the outrageous delays to debt relief for Haiti and Liberia – two of the poorest countries in the world.
They are calling for rich country governments to act with the same urgency in tackling the food crisis and global poverty as they have the banking crisis in recent weeks. Campaigners are pointing out that the ‘emergency bailout’ for big banks has been fast-tracked, while two countries on the receiving end of the impacts of the food and financial crises – Haiti and Liberia – are facing new delays to debt relief they have long been promised.
A new report on the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries debt relief initiative produced for the annual meetings has announced that the likely date for Haiti to receive debt relief has been put back six months from ‘last quarter 2008’ to ‘first half 2009’ [1]. Meanwhile Liberia, which spent two years while recovering from civil war waiting for donors to agree how to clear its arrears so it could even ‘qualify’ for debt relief, is being told not to expect any until 2010.
Neil Watkins, National Coordinator of Jubilee USA Network, said: “After four hurricanes in a month and an escalating food crisis it is outrageous that Haiti is being told it must wait six more months for debt relief. This is like Hank Paulson telling Wall Street he will get back to them in the New Year.”
“Haiti has been dealing with multiple crises in recent months. As a result it is still spending $1 million a week on debt service while its people starve. As we’ve seen this month, when Wall Street bankers are affected, they get fast tracked for debt relief. But the people of Haiti don’t seem to matter very much in Washington. Haiti needs the immediate debt cancellation of its illegitimate debt that it has long been promised now,” said Watkins.
Nick Dearden, Director of Jubilee Debt Campaign UK, said: “Liberia has a large, illegitimate commercial debt burden and both the government and its creditors are ready to make a deal via the Debt Reduction Facility, but are being held up by delays in the World Bank bureaucracy. The people working on the DRF should stop crisis-watching on CNN and get on with releasing funds that will save people’s lives.”
“Liberia is on the front line of the global food crisis, and yet it is still being told it must wait until 2010 for debt relief to be delivered. In such a rapidly-changing world, the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative is increasingly looking like an outdated process. It’s time for an urgent injection of political will to get some liquidity back into debt cancellation, and bail out the world’s poor from a mess they had no part in creating,” said Dearden.
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[1] Haiti’s like completion date for the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s debt cancellation scheme, has been put back ‘last quarter 2008’ to ‘first half 2009’ – a delay of up to six months. See Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative: Status of Implementation report, World Bank and International Monetary Fund, 12 September 2008.
For more information, see www.jubileeusa.org and www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk
Neil Watkins
National Coordinator
Jubilee USA Network
Direct line: (202) 783-0129 / Mobile: (202) 421-1023
Skype: neil_jubileeusa
www.jubileeusa.org
