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Debt relief deal done by G8
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-13368374,00.htmlLeaders of the world's richest nations have agreed a deal to cancel tens of billions of dollars of debt owed by the world's poorest countries.
The package will see 100% of debts totalling £40bn cleared immediately for 18 nations with others to follow.
Fantastic news!
And I think it's fair to say Gordon Brown and even Tony Blair for once deserve a lot of praise for ensuring this has happened.
It won't solve the problem, but it will help. A lot.
Beep boop. I'm a bot.
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The fact that africa is a mess doesn't excuse not doing anything, and I'm delighted with this, I just don't think anything will change.
Now they just need free trade and help to gather new technology and know-how.
Good governance is important as well as debt relief.
But that is only part of the solution. There is still corruption to be dealt with. And wars. And bad government. The West can actually play a part in making things better on these areas too, and should do so.
edit: this in private eye
Of the 22 countries that have so far ratified the United Nations convention against corruption, how many are members of the G8. Er, none
The world leaders publicly pledged themselves to the convention, which will create international rules for the handling of corruption, at their 2003 jamboree in Evian, France, Ratification was one of the recommendations of Tony Blair's Africa Commission. But when will it be ratified?
"Soon", promises minister after minister when questions are raised in parliament, explainign the need for "orders in council" to ensure that the UK's proceeds of crime act and other laws fit together with the conventions rules on confiscated funds.The convention needs 30 ratifications to come into force. If the rest of the world reaches that tally before any of the G8 countries get their act together, how on Earth can the rich nations club claim to be tackling the problems of corruption crippling developing world economies?
yes that why id rather see money given to NGOs
They shouldn't let them off the hook UNTIL they get rid of corruption otherwise the money saved will end up in swiss bank accounts.
There is one west African country that has got over $4.2 Billlion missing from oils companies that they paid for the right to drill for oil in their country .. their finance minister claims the money isn't missing, it's just an accounting error!!
That money hasn't gone to help the poor people but to keep the elite few rich forever.
Do you think European ones aren't?
not in such a blatent way ...
Lets remember that many of these leaders were in fact installed or otherwise raised/supported to power by our own US/European govt funding and CIA/MI5 etc.. covert suport expressly because they were willing to sell off their nation's natural resources to foreign corporate control in exchange for IMF/WorldBank "structural adjustment" funds.
Thats what this charade of foreign debt is truly about at the heart of it and the very reason their nations are systemically kept in poverty. The few millions or even billions over which our leaders and media seek to lay the excuse for perpetual poverty and underdevelopment pale beside the hundreds of billions in annual extortion removed from these nations through institutionalised plunder. That is something that will not end no matter how many "made for media" gestures our leaders parade before our regularly misinformed masses.
I agree with this.
African countries are completely fucked.
In comparison, there is at least system in the corruption whereas in the African countries they just grab at every level you counter.
Countries like Sri Lanka should be given this help, ones like Sudan should not.
It is equal trade which Africa needs, it is deeply immoral that tinned tomatos from Itally are dumped cheaper on Africa than they can grow. The CAP and its version in the US must be drasticly reformed.
giving money to NGOs and giving old unwanted clothing, actually helps loads in poor countries
forced water privitisation by imf has meant many people have access to water but cant use it cause thry have to pay for it and they cant afford for pipes to be laid
its completly different to when water was privitised here, we had it public for so long the infrastruture was there, in many south american counries this isnt the case
Privatisation Hangs Over Debt Relief
Analysis by Sanjay Suri
The G7 finance ministers agreed to write off the debt of 18 of the poorest countries, but firm prescriptions of privatisation hovered over the debt relief offer.
LONDON, Jun 12 (IPS) - The G7 finance ministers agreed Saturday to write off the debt of 18 of the poorest countries, but firm prescriptions of privatisation hovered over the debt relief offer.
Finance ministers from the Group of Seven of the world's leading industrialised nations -- United States, Canada, Japan, Britain, France, Germany and Italy (the G8, minus Russia) -- agreed to write off 100 percent of the debt of 18 of the poorest countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. That will amount to debt cancellation of about two billion dollars a year.
Campaigners focusing on debt relief welcomed the move. But the finance ministers' agreement contains a provision on privatisation that has the potential to deliver to them more money than they wrote off.
The ministers reaffirmed in a statement at the end of their two-day meeting Saturday that "in order to make progress on social and economic development, it is essential that developing countries put in place the policies for economic growth." Among these, they must "boost private sector development, and attract investment," and ensure "the elimination of impediments to private investment, both domestic and foreign."
The ministers committed themselves to a successful outcome for the Doha Development Agenda, agreed at the World Trade Organisation's ministerial meet in the Qatar capital in 2001.
This, they said, "delivers substantial increases in market access for developing countries, establishes a timetable for the elimination of all trade-distorting export support in agriculture, and provides effective special and differential treatment for developing countries."
The commitment to "elimination of all trade-distorting export support in agriculture" stops well short, however, of an agreement to end subsidies to farmers in rich countries, estimated at more than 300 billion dollars a year. It is these subsidies rather than specific programmes to support exports that have created artificially low prices for Western produce that are choking exports from developing countries.
The ministers said they recognise that "not all countries will benefit in the short term from reductions in trade barriers." The ministers committed themselves to "provide support to enable developing countries to benefit from trade opportunities."
The ministers picked the example of Nigeria to stress that their recommended way to reforms lies through embracing the policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
"Nigeria is key to the prosperity of the whole continent of Africa," they said in their statement. "We welcomed Nigeria's progress in economic reform as assessed in the IMF's intensified surveillance framework... and encouraged them to continue to reform." In turn they said "we are prepared to provide a fair and sustainable solution to Nigeria's debt problems in 2005."
It became clear that the International Finance Facility (IFF) pushed by Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister) Gordon Brown had failed to win significant support from other G7 countries.
The IFF, a scheme to raise money in government bonds to be paid off through later aid pledges, was agreed as just one option. The Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) of the United States, which ties aid grants to pledges of good governance including the U.S. fight against terrorism, remains in place as the preferred U.S. way.
France and Germany are giving their backing to some of the recommendations of the Landau Report (named after French Inspector of Finances Jean-Pierre Landau), particularly its proposal for a contribution on air travel tickets to support specific development projects and to refinance the IFF.
The G7 finance ministers clearly failed to agree a unified path of movement towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), set by the United Nations in 2000. Little further progress is expected on this front before the G8 leaders summit in Gleneagles in Scotland, July 6-8.
Unanimity emerged only over debt cancellation for what are known as Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC). But the small print here too indicates that this was not unanimity on unconditional support.
The HIPC countries have been told that any additional donor contributions will rest on "performance-based allocation systems", and that such action will ensure that "assistance is based on country performance."
The World Bank has been made the monitor for these countries' moves towards "good governance, accountability and transparency." These declared aims are inevitably open to endless interpretation.
The 100 percent debt cancellation further holds only for HIPCs "that are on track with their programmes of repayment obligations and adjusting their gross assistance flows by the amount forgiven." That is, the debt will be "forgiven" only to countries that can show they were in the process of repaying.
While the debt cancellation will no doubt provide immediate relief, there is enough in the stated package to raise some questions what these countries may have to do next.
The finance ministers agreed that they will use grant financing to "ensure that countries do not immediately re-accumulate unsustainable external debts, and are eased into new borrowing."
On just how they proceed from here, the HIPCs may have no choice but to look to the World Bank and the IMF to show them the way. (END)
Yes, but if we removed all subsidies from Western farmers huge numbers of them would go bust and the countryside just left.
Very quickly the huge majority of our food would travel even further and come thousands of miles, rather than from our own soil.
Export subsidies should be stopped dead, but there should be some flat payments to Western farmers for land management and enviromental measures.
or to grow higher 'quality' food, not necesserily amazing or organic otherwise thered be a glut but more better quality less intensive farming, maybe the restoration of hedgerows and less reliance on chemicals etc etc
i dont like seeing food shipped thousands of miles, its a waste, we can grow for ourselves cheaper, but remove the export subisidies
Anyone?
Thought not.
Even if that is true is that really a great way to go about running a government, OK, lets do this war thing because if we are lucky the US will say yes to something else in future.
Yes, but part of that doesnt normally involve a war which has no forseeable end.
Remember that relations with the UK would be as bad as they are between the US and France at the moment.
We dont know.
I think the answer is we cant say for definate.
And even if we could, is the war worth it? Given how much the war is costing us, couldnt we have just paid their share and it cost less?