Obama Administration's First Test on Global Poverty
We find ourselves at a crucial moment in history, not just for our country but for the world. Thousands of people in our communities have lost their homes or their jobs due to the current economic crisis. But I fear that the global financial crisis will impact the world's impoverished and developing countries the hardest. For many of those already living on the margins, the current economic crisis is literally a life and death emergency.
That is why I have joined a delegation of 18 national Jewish and Christian religious leaders to request a meeting with our nation's new Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner in advance of the upcoming G-20 summit of the world's largest economies. In addition to leading our nation's economic recovery, Secretary Geithner is charged with shaping our global economic policies. Our delegation will tell the Secretary that canceling the unjust debts of impoverished nations and responsible, poverty-focused assistance are critical for alleviating the impact of the economic crisis on the world's poorest countries.
In Haiti, four devastating hurricanes and volatility in food and energy prices over the past year have created massive food shortages which could lead to large-scale starvation in the coming months. Haiti has been severely affected by the United States' weakening economy. Not only are exports to the US a significant percentage of Haiti's GDP, Haiti is also heavily dependent on Haitians living in the US sending money home. As the crisis in Haiti deepens, the country continues to send millions of dollars every month in debt repayment to the World Bank as it waits for desperately needed debt cancellation.
On the other side of the world in Kenya, at least 120 people were incinerated earlier this month while trying to collect spilled gasoline from an overturned tanker truck. Men, women and children were burned to death while siphoning gasoline to resell for money to buy food and other basic necessities. An Associated Press article about the tragedy tells the story of a boy who caught on fire but survived. The boy, who had dropped out of grammar school because he couldn't afford the school fees, said he had no idea that the gasoline would ignite.
Kenya's unemployment rate stands at 40% and half of the population lives below the poverty line. If it were not spending millions to repay its international debt, Kenya could follow the example of neighboring Tanzania, which used money freed by debt cancellation in 2000 to eliminate school fees and increase education spending. From that time until this year, debt relief has enabled Tanzania to increase the number of children in primary schools by over 50%, build 2,500 additional schools, and recruit thousands of additional teachers. If the current rate of progress continues, Tanzania will attain universal primary education significantly ahead of the 2015 target date set under the Millennium Development Goals.
The Judeo-Christian tradition compels us to prioritize the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable, whether in our own country or internationally. Not only is this the right thing to do, it is the best interests of our nation that we reach out to the rest of the world at this time. President Obama's administration represents a new opportunity to restore our moral standing in the world. Recognizing and responding to the increased hardship in developing countries caused by an economic crisis not of their making will be the first test of the administration's commitment to addressing global poverty.
Ruth Messinger is President of American Jewish World Service, www.ajws.org, an international development organization motivated by Judaism's imperative to pursue justice.
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Thank you Ms. Messinger. This is a very encouraging post to me. Rather than posting another bitter and angry post about benign neglect and even economic violence, i for once want to congratulate someone for focusing on this. People are finally getting it. Ms. Messinger, the only thing that I would add is that virtually all of the debt needs to be relieved. As an article below explains, one cannot say that these African nations are run by dictator-led, unrepresentative regimes, and yet be unwilling to alleviate their debt. I disagree about the IMF and World Bank, they are led by the Wolfowitz, Geithner, Summers types. Do you trust them with our own economy, let alone those that need help the most? Frankly these institutions need to be abolished. The fact is that Africans and African Americans have a lot of catching up to do that much is true, but they can also catch up rather fast. Some people are opposed to that for obvious reasons. Hopefully this doesn't get scrubbed.
"Africa’s massive external debt burden is the single biggest obstacle to the continent’s development and to the fight against HIV/AIDS. The over $200 billion that African countries owe to foreign creditors represents a crippling load that undermines economic and social progress. The All-Africa Conference of Churches has called this debt “a new form of slavery, as vicious as the slave trade.
The albatross of illegitimate debt diverts money directly from spending on health care, education and other important needs. While most people in Africa live on less than $2 per day, African countries are forced to spend almost $14 billion each year servicing old, illegitimate debts to rich country governments and their institutions, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Over the past two decades, African countries have paid out more in debt service to foreign creditors than they have received in development assistance or in new loans.
Much of Africa’s foreign debt is illegitimate in nature, having been incurred by unrepresentative and despotic regimes, mainly during the era of Cold War patronage. Loans were made to corrupt leaders who used the money for their own personal gain, often with the full knowledge and support of lenders. These loans did not benefit Africa’s people. More generally, many Africans question the notion of an African “debt” to the U.S. and European countries after centuries of exploitation.
Yet, despite the social and economic costs of this massive outflow of resources from the world’s poorest region, the wealthy creditors of Africa’s debts continue to insist these debts be repaid. …The U.S. is the single largest shareholder in the World Bank and IMF, the institutions to which most of Africa’s debts are owed. As such, it holds major influence over the international response to Africa’s debt crisis.
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Thank you Stell. I agree with you completely. Both the IMF and World Bank either need a total overhaul or need to be eliminated. Especially, the IMF. The IMF was created after World War II in order to help Europe with reconstruction and then it just got carried away. For one, if you go to many parts of Europe you can see they never did their job in the first place. Demolished buildings still line the streets. Then, seeing the opportunity to use their massive wealth to take advantage of others, knowingly, they went to far with their odious loans. I applaud you for your comments.
I signed up just to echo all of the comments posted thus far- all clearly in favor of thorough debt cancellation among developing countries. I am a fan of both Stell and Ms. Messinger. I was proud to be a part of the moving prayer breakfast that was held by the Jubilee USA coalition at Rayburn Hall in October of 2007, which included a seech by Ms. Messinger and an introduction of a bill to give U.S. Treasury the authority to create the kinds of effective expanded debt cancellation we are talking about here and to audit the debts of countries where they were accumulated by illegitimate governments. I was not the only one proud to be there. Maxine Waters (D, CA) stated that her work on this issue is the work in her carer that has made her more proud than all the rest.
Thank you for your very kind words. This is the solution that everyone needs to be working on. Unfortunately I don't think it was discussed at the G-20. They are planning on dumping another $1trillion dollars into "loans" to countries around the world. Given all of the secrecy of these corrupt financial lords and corrupt institutions like WB and IMF, I would think it would not be very easy to get an accurate audit, because there is likely to be some deceit involved. Right now Ms. Warren can't even get Treasury to cooperate with her on important information regarding TARP, here in this country! Unfortunately I think that the G-20 was little more than a refinement of the status quo. But where does the bill regarding the debt cancellation stand? Was in Maxine Waters that introduced it? Where do the other members of Congress stand on the bill. I think that is very important. It's easy to despair, sometimes I don't even feel like posting, because the answer is right there in front of everyone's face and they either innocently or maliciously ignore it. I look forward to seeing your posts on the site.
We often like to toot our own horns in America. Saying, "Life is so hard." "I need debt releif." "When will my debt be cancelled.
Now, more than ever, debt relief and economic assistance is needed throughout the Third World. It has been necessary for the survival of millions for a long time and yet releif has been bogged-down either through the lack of awareness or the dead-in-the-water efforts of politicians. I hope the cries of the impoversihed finally fall on responsive ears because if the ears of those who can make change remain deaf it may be to late to bring justice to those that have suffered too long.
Before he became president, Barack Obama promised to double foreign assistance, expand debt relief and grant support for poor nations, and reform the IMF and World Bank. The G-20 summit is the perfect place to start fulfilling these commitments.
In the US, the recession means losing a job, losing a home, not being able to send a child to college -- all serious and devasting consequences. In the developing world, it may mean selling a daughter into sex slavery so that her younger siblings can eat. Secretary Geithner, as we all know, has been very busy and understaffed. But I hope he and President Obama listen to Ruth Messinger and her allies in the faith community before they take off for the G-20 summit in London on April 2. In order to restore our moral standing in the world, the US must show leadership in helping to take care of the least of us. New lending may or may not be controversial. What's simple, quick and direct is foregiving the old debts -- often entered into illegally -- of the developing world. With debt relief, low-income countries would be able to divert resources (currently gobbled up with debt service) to provide health care, education, clean water, infrastructure and other vitial services during this time of historic crisis. Thank you, Ruth Messinger, for this important and timely article.
I applaud the efforts of this inerfaith delegation to shine some focus on global poverty when it's easy to forget that the poorest people are bearing the brunt of the crisis yet again.
There are many ways this administration can act on global poverty issues. Supporting microcredit and reforming our foreign assistance system are high on my suggestion list. The opportunity is vast to improve our efforts to reach the world's bottom billion with effective ways to help them rise out of extreme poverty in empowering ways.
Forget micro credit. The debt is illegitimate, forgive it. Trade, not aid.
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