"Rights vs. Wrongs" A Save the Children perspective

[This paper is one of several to stimulate a debate for the Rome conference.It does not necessarily represent the views of any Jubilee 2000 campaign.]

Children are all too often neither seen nor heard in debates on multilateral debt, moral hazard or IMF bailouts. Similarly, most children have never heard of the "Washington Consensus" and Joseph Stiglitz’s admission that "...it does not offer the most important answers for every question in development, and deluding ourselves into thinking that it does can lead to misguided policies". Yet children are clearly among the main victims of the debt crisis. We know that countless numbers of children died in the lost decade of the 1980s and now in the 1990s UNDP tells us that 21 million children can be saved if African governments are relieved of their debt payments. As the millennium approaches we now face the huge policy challenges of dealing with the build up of private sector debt and with financial contagion as it spreads from Asia to Russia and back to Latin America - the heart of the debt crisis of the early 1980s.

Our concern at Save the Children is not only that economic policies have been misguided but that they have violated the fundamental principle of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (the CRC); that the best interests of the child are at the heart of building a child friendly society. The multilateral debt crisis and the limitations of the HIPC initiative are of particular concern to Save the Children UK. The nearly universal ratification of the CRC means that nearly every country in the world has committed itself to ensuring the well-being, survival and development of children. Yet debt visibly threatens the lives and well-being of children and the ability of governments to fulfill their obligations.

Endless statistics and first hand accounts of the impacts of debt on children is not going to help take the debate further. We know that because of debt and economic mismanagement more and more children are dying, being trafficked, working in hazardous conditions and living life on the streets. The Jubilee 2000 campaign, members of public, the media and children and their families want the international community to implement existing obligations to children worldwide. Next year is the 10th anniversary of the CRC and we believe this offers an opportunity for the international community to turns its wrongs into rights. Mobilising sufficient political will globally for a one off cancellation of unpayable debt is inextricably linked to binding legal commitments to implementing the CRC.

This unique document expresses fundamental values about the treatment of children, their protection and participation in society. Article 4 of the CRC is particularly relevant concerning the diversion of resources for debt payments.

"With regard to economic, social and cultural rights [of children], States Parties shall undertake such measures to the maximum extent of their available resources and, where needed, within the framework of international cooperation".

The debt burden has considerably depleted the resources which governments have to realise the social, economic and cultural rights of children. The Committee monitoring the CRC requires governments to report on the budgetary proportions allocated for services for children and to define where resource constraints exist. In their initial reports to the Committee some HIPC countries such as Uganda cited debt servicing as a direct reason for resource constraints. The Committee stresses however that a lack of resources cannot be used as an excuse for neglecting to implement health, education, and welfare services for children.

"Resources" are sometimes defined broadly to cover human resources (capacity of people and communities), economic resources ("things-material and financial inputs) and organisational resources (the enabling environment, norms, values, structures). In our view debt has eroded all these type of resources through cuts in health and education services, the breakdown and decay of infrastructure, and increased poverty. "Resources" are therefore inter-generational. The key question for us is whether the depletion of a country’s resources through the accumulation of debts in the past should be born by poor people - and especially their children - in the present?

Article 4's emphasis on international cooperation to assist the implementation of the CRC is particularly relevant to Jubilee’s calls for greater debt relief. Under the Convention the Committee is permitted to investigate the extent to which a government’s international cooperation policy is designed to foster implementation of the Convention, including the economic, social and cultural rights of children. Donor countries for example must identify the amount of international aid as a proportion of the total government budget. Where appropriate, information on the assistance received from regional and international financial institutions is also required. Such considerations are all the more urgent considering that aid as a share of industrial country GDP has fallen to 0.22%, the lowest since records began. In this context creditor governments and the World Bank and IMF as UN member agencies are responsible to ensure that their development cooperation policies meet the best interests of the child. This is clearly not the case at present.

Debt Relief for Children

SCF’s Children’s Agenda outlines a vision of a just and equitable world for children. Current realities surrounding the HIPC initiative are clearly not in the best interests of the child. The political and economic realities of the debt crisis further economic exclusion. Save the Children is calling for inclusive economic and political models which put human development at the centre. In the meantime, we continue to work with children suffering the consequences of exclusion. The gap between inclusive models and exclusive ones is wide, but it is possible to bridge it given greater political will, greater humility concerning the causes and consequences of the debt crisis and recognition that aspects of international economic environment often work against the interests of developing countries. The issue of debt cannot be separated from the global trends which currently undermine developing country sovereignty over their economies including structural adjustment programmes, the proposed MAI treaty and liberalising agenda of the World Trade Organisation. Given this reality:

SCF calls upon all governments to honour their commitments to child survival, development, protection and participation as laid out in the CRC.

SCF calls upon the UK government to follow Norway’s unilateral action and cancel all of its outstanding debt.

SCF calls upon the CRC Committee to conduct a 10th anniversary study into the impacts of multilateral and private sector debt on children for the millennium.

SCF calls upon the World Bank, the IMF creditor and debtor governments to give greater priority to debt management in the future.

[This paper is one of several to stimulate a debate for the Rome conference.It does not necessarily represent the views of any Jubilee 2000 campaign.]

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