Country of the week

Introduction

Jubilee 2000 Coalition in the UK considers 52 countries to be in most urgent need of debt relief. Each week in 2000 we will feature one of these countries, giving you all the details you need to raise awareness of the effects of debt. The country profiles include information on:

Campaign Ideas

You can use this information in your campaigning in a number of ways. Some suggestions are listed below, but you're bound to think of others!

  1. Make a feature of one country per week on your office noticeboard, at church, in the local library, or ask for a regular slot on radio or in your local paper to tell people about debt in a particular country.
  2. Make the country information relevant locally and give people an idea of the scale of debt by drawing parallels with local spending – always an issue for the local papers! For example, compare the debt with cinema or supermarket takings, or on what the council spends on fireworks displays or Christmas decorations. You could even use a local scandal about council spending to make a comparison about council spending and point out that corruption can happen at home too!
  3. Use the profile information in your activities. For example, you could hold a photo stunt with two symbols – a huge pile of chains or cash or sacks representing the debt and another smaller one representing aid or the amount spent on health and education. Then send a copy of your photo or press cuttings to campaigners in the indebted country with a message of support for their work.
  4. Focus on a particular country in your campaigning work – you could hold a themed meeting, or write to your MP or the British government on behalf of your campaigning colleagues in a particular country, highlighting the problems of debt there and asking for the debt to be cancelled.
  5. Use the information on debt in particular countries in any talks you give, or when you are explaining the debt problem to potential petition signers on the street, at work, at family gatherings... Combine the statistics with any personal experience you have of visiting or meeting someone from an indebted country.

Country Statistics

Basic debt data on 92 poorest countries including statistics on aid and debt service, per capita data, debt compared to trade, scheduled and actual debt service, human development indicators and socio-economic categorisation.

 

List of Countries


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