DEBT CANCELLATION BACKED BY 22 MILLION SIGNATURES

The chairman of the Group of 77 recently presented a petition to the UN containing a record-breaking 22 million signatures that called for the cancellation of the debts of the world's poorest nations.

by Thalif Deen

United Nations, 7 Sep 2000 (IPS) -- Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, chairman of the Group of 77, presented on 7 September, a petition with an unprecedented 22 million signatures to the United Nations calling for the cancellation of debts of the world’s poorest nations.

Obasanjo, who heads the largest single coalition of mostly debt-ridden developing nations, was sending a strong message to Western donors that the least developed countries (LDCs), described as the poorest of the world’s poor, are urgently in need of debt relief.

“It was a world-record-breaking petition,” Jamie Drummond of the Jubilee 2000 Coalition, the primary sponsor, told IPS. “It was the largest number of signatures ever collected on one single issue.”

The 22 million signatures, which ranged from thumbprints to emails, were from people in 155 countries. Nigeria was asked to present the petition, he said, not only because it was head of the Group of 77, but also because it was a country urgently in need of debt relief.

The petition was presented to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan who in a report to the Millennium Summit, currently underway here, has called upon donor countries and international financial institutions to consider wiping off their books all official debts of the 40 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) in return for demonstrable commitments to poverty reduction.

The 40 HIPCs, including Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Ghana, Honduras, Nicaragua, Sudan, Yemen and Zambia, have a total debt stock of over $215 billion.

Drummond said 12 other countries - Nigeria, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Equatorial Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Morocco, Jamaica, Haiti, Nepal, Gambia and Zimbabwe - also qualify for HIPC status.

The Philippines has a total debt stock of about $48 billion, Peru about $33 billion, Nigeria over $30 billion and Bangladesh about $16.4 billion.

But the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have refused to expand the HIPC list for undisclosed reasons, Drummond said.

In the Millennium Declaration, to be adopted at the United Nations on 8 September, over 150 world leaders are being asked to implement the enhanced programme of debt relief for HIPCs “without further delay” and to agree to cancel all official bilateral debts.

But the United States has already expressed strong reservations over this particular provision in the declaration. US delegate Betty King told the General Assembly last week that the United States felt “it would have been more useful for member states and the United Nations to work with the governments of Africa towards debt relief”, rather than debt cancellation.

Ann Pettifor, Director of Jubilee 2000, said the petition was presented before the largest single gathering of world leaders in order to underline the importance of debt cancellation.

The debt crisis, she said, cannot be left to the dictates of the world’s seven richest countries: the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan. When the Group of Seven met in Okinawa in July, she said, they squandered the opportunity to help the poor in this millennium year.

In a report released during the Okinawa summit, the Jubilee 2000 Coalition said that the world leaders face a choice. They must decide whether to do nothing or to act.

The case for political action is strong simply because every day, over $60 million is transferred from the poorest to the richest countries in debt repayments, the study added.

Of the $100 billion in debt cancellation promised at the Group of Seven Summit in Cologne last year, only about $17 billion in debt relief commitments have been made so far.

“Debt creates a human catastrophe that is getting worse - three million children have already died as a result of the debt crisis in the new millennium,” the study said.

Meanwhile, on the second day of the Millennium Summit on 7 September, the issue of debt cancellation was a predominant theme in the speeches of several heads of state.

Mozambican President Joaquim Alberto Chissano said that external debt “is a major obstacle to economic growth and sustainable development of developing countries.”

While he welcomed the HIPC and other initiatives, “we believe that unconditional debt cancellation could enable us to redirect resources to poverty eradication, including the improvement of social sectors and rehabilitation of basic infrastructures,” he said. Mozambique, one of 40 HIPCs, has a total debt stock of over $8.5 billion.

Chissano said that debt cancellations, however, have to be supplemented with adequate development assistance, better access to world markets and increases in foreign direct investments.

Zambian President Frederick Chiluba was more blunt: the HIPC Initiative, he said, “has had little impact on debt and poverty.”

“The eligibility and access to the HIPC Initiative must be more open to benefit many more countries that are in desperate need of support,” he added.

Emomali Rakhmonov, President of Tajikistan, told delegates that he shares the views of many that forgiving the accumulated debts of countries that have gone through large-scale conflicts or natural disasters would provide “a powerful impetus to sustainable-peace building in those countries.”

“We are convinced that such a measure would free up significant internal resources that could be used for education and health care, for alleviating consequences of conflicts, and for responding to natural disasters more effectively,” Rakhmonov said.

President Eduard Shevardnadze of Georgia said that one of the most complex problems is that of debt. “It is commonly known that as debts accumulate, the number of those suffering from hunger and sickness the world over grows in geometric proportion.”

At the dawn of this millennium, he said, the donor nations must release developing countries from the fetters of debt. “This breakthrough would be equal to that of the victory over the Cold War. Its initiators and participants would become modern heroes.”

Shevardnadze also pointed out that there can be no new “financial architecture” unless debts are written off.-SUNS4736