United States lawmakers approve $435 million for debt relief and win World Bank pledge on user fees

Debt campaigners in the United States and around the world are marking a significant victory after the US Congress last night finally voted to provide $435 million to fund the country's participation in the international effort to cancel some of the debts of the poorest countries.

The $435 million is nearly double what the House of Representatives had earmarked for debt relief and more than five times what the Senate had recommended. Jubilee 2000 campaigners in the US had made full funding of the President's request for debt relief a major issue in the increasingly frantic end-of-year budget negotiations between Congress and the White House. President Clinton and Treasury Secretary Larry Summers put political weight behind the request, staking personal credibility on the issue.

Congress also agreed to allow the IMF to revalue part of its gold reserves, which allows it to cancel a portion of the debts it is owed. US lawmakers had been holding back their approval, looking for more guarantees on IMF reform.

“This is a first step toward freeing up funds that could be used to save lives,” said Dan Driscoll-Shaw, the national coordinator of Jubilee 2000 USA. “When so many of us in this country have been able to take advantage of economic growth, if we can't put this change into the pot (now), when would we ever do it?”

Ann Pettifor, Director of Jubilee 2000 UK said: “This is a real victory. We have persuaded Congress to give far more resources to debt cancellation than ever before, so that the poorest countries can increase their spending on basic services like health care and clean water.

“Internationally, we can breathe a sigh of relief with the joint financing finally in place to get on with reducing the debts of the poorest countries. There is now no excuse not to fully implement the plans agreed by the richest nations in Cologne in 1999. These plans will take us half way there. To reach the top and leave the debt crisis behind, the IMF and World Bank must cancel 100% of the debts owed to them, as the US, UK and other rich creditors have promised to do.”

David Beckmann of the relief organization Bread for the World, said the vote was a great victory for the world's hungry. “Not since Dr. Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement has the grass-roots action of churches and people of goodwill so influenced our nation's leaders,” Beckmann said.

“This is a victory for the world's poor,” said Tom Hart of the Episcopal Church, who coordinated a lobbying effort by nongovernmental organizations to ease Third World debts. “Now instead of making interest payments to the richest countries, poor nations can send more children to school, immunize their people against diseases and get their goods to markets.”

Jubilee 2000 has run a targeted campaign through grass roots action and high-level lobbying to present the moral and economic arguments for debt cancellation to fight poverty. In September, U2's Bono did a whirlwind tour of Capitol Hill, convincing key Senators like Jesse Helms to back the debt relief element of the Foreign Operations Bill.

Meanwhile, the US Congress secured another important success yesterday when its pressure led the World Bank to announce a reversal of its long-standing support for `user fees' for basic health and education in the poorest countries. The Bank and the IMF have been criticised for insisting that user fees should be imposed in countries like Mozambique and Tanzania before those countries could be granted debt cancellation.

The Congress last night agreed to compel the Clinton administration to oppose the fees, which the bank has promoted as a way to help governments balance their budgets. “The bank has learned that barriers to access for health and education must be eliminated,” said Eduardo Doryan, a World Bank vice president. “We are moving in the direction” of eliminating the imposition of fees for basic services from all lending programs, he said, according to Bloomberg news. However, the International Monetary Fund has not been won over to the new position. Spokesman William Murray said bluntly: “When you get into the fiscal mix, a lot of things are necessary”.

The drive against user fees has been led in the United States by two members of the Jubilee 2000 US Coalition, RESULTS and the 50 Years is Enough Network. RESULTS board member and actress Valerie Harper, told members of Congress that charging the world's most impoverished people for the basic health and education was a "terrible tragedy." She pointed out, "I live in one of wealthiest areas of the wealthiest country in the world, and my daughter can attend Beverly Hills High School for free. Meanwhile, women in the poorest countries of sub-Saharan Africa are told they have to come up with hard cash to send their kids to first grade or see a doctor at a clinic. We must not accept this."

Campaigners say user fees have led to increased illness, suffering and death when people cannot pay for health services, and decreased school enrollments when poor families can no longer afford to send their children to school. In a tragic example in Zambia quoted by UNICEF, a researcher observed a 14 year boy with acute malaria turned away from a health clinic for want of a 33 cent registration fee. According to the report, "within 2 hours, the boy was brought back dead."