Opening the debate. What do we really mean by our slogan?

[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.]

An introduction to the policy and campaigns discussion at Rome

by Joseph Hanlon, Jubilee 2000 Coalition London Office

The Jubilee 2000 campaign is growing rapidly. Our importance is that we are a mass movement making a clear and agreed demand. Our strength comes from our collective efforts.

The Rome meeting is our first major international attempt to try to develop a coherent campaign strategy and deepen our understanding of what our campaign slogan means. Each national campaign will have its own policies and own interpretations, and within each country different members will run campaigns in their own way. But these differences in interpretation and style seem small compared to the very broad agreement on goals

The Rome meeting is open to all national coalitions and movements now campaigning under the Jubilee 2000 banner.

The Rome meeting and the structure of this debate

We should use the Rome meeting:

• to gain an understanding of what different Jubilee 2000 members are doing, and
• to see if we can develop further a broad campaign and minimum policy platform on which we all agree.

We only have two days in Rome for a lot of discussion, so we would urge as many groups as possible to write preliminary papers or notes on their own views. The London-based Jubilee 2000 Coalition is happy to facilitate this discussion, both with this preliminary paper, and by using this "Policy Conference" section of our website for this debate. Papers reflect the view of individual writers and not the national movement, so you are free to write what you want.

We will post your papers as soon as possible. Send them directly to Joe Hanlon on jhanlon@jubilee2000uk.org

(Please send as simple text in an e-mail. You can also try as an attached file in Word or some other computer languages, but we cannot always translate. Most documents will be in English, but we can also post documents in Spanish, French or other languages.)

The agenda for the Rome meeting has not yet been decided, but we initially suggest the following:

• that one-third of the meeting be devoted to campaigning questions, and
• that two-thirds of the meeting be devoted to policy issues and to the interpretation of our slogan.

We further suggest that the policy part of the meeting discuss three issues, and we may break up into separate workshops on these subjects.

Policy issues to discuss

Three policy issues are proposed for discussion.

1. WHAT DO WE MEAN BY "UNPAYABLE DEBT OF THE POOREST COUNTRIES"?

There is an implicit assumption in all of our campaigns that HIPC is inadequate; it provides too little debt relief and the purely fiscal debt "sustainability" criteria are inadequate and inappropriate. Many organisations now argue that "sustainability" should be defined in development terms – for example, a country should have enough money to spend on development before it is required to pay debt service, and that this might mean a 100% cancellation for some of the poorest countries. Thus the first question is:

1.a) Can we define, even very broadly, new criteria to establish what are "unpayable debts of the poorest countries"?

But who is to define this for individual countries? Do we want simple numeric criteria which can be automatically applied (which might reduce the power of the international financial institutions, but like the HIPC criteria might prove to be inappropriate for some or all countries) or do we want a case-by-case consideration (which would allow for special circumstances, such as odious or dictators debts, or post-war problems, to be taken into account, but which would have to be negotiated and thus would be more political)? And who is to determine the criteria: creditors, debtor governments, debtor civil society, a neutral arbitration panel? This puts two further questions on the table:

1.b) Do we want simple criteria automatically applied, or do we want unpayability decided on a case by case basis?

1.c) Who is to set the simple criteria or make the case-by-case eligibility decision?

2. CONDITIONALITY.

There is a widespread acceptance that debt relief should benefit the poorest. There is also growing acceptance that there is a problem of waste and corruption and that, at least in some cases, simple debt cancellation would not benefit the poorest. This is also one of the issues most commonly raised in response to our campaign by both governments and the general public – the image that "they" are corrupt and do not care for their own poor is very pervasive. In many cases, this has led to northern governments and the international financial agencies simply imposing new conditions, and for northern NGOs to demand conditions or a role in the use of aid and debt relief funds. Many feel this to be racist and paternalistic, as well as ineffective (because northern-imposed conditions are often wrong and/or useless). This has led to various suggestions that the only northern condition should be that debt relief be channelled through a poverty alleviation fund or programme defined by a combination of democratic government and representative civil society. But it could take several years to organise such a programme, and we have set the year 2000 as our unalterable deadline. Our slogan refers to "a fair and transparent process", which is a condition on creditors as well as debtors. Thus four potential questions for discussion are:

2.a) Do we agree that conditions should be attached to debt cancellation?

2.b) What sort of conditions do we want?

Can these conditions be defined in a way that they increase the power of people in poor countries?

2.c) What do we mean by "a fair and transparent process"?

2.d) How do we ensure that our conditions do not delay debt cancellation beyond the year 2000?

3. HOW DO WE AVOID A NEW DEBT TRAP?

There is a growing concern in the south that the north should not be able to make political loans to dictators like Mobuto and then expect his successors to pay. And there is a growing concern in the north to prevent future debt crises. This leads to arguments for more transparency and public approval of new loans – for example, that World Bank loans should be individually approved by debtor country parliaments, rather than sorted out in secret. It also leads to demands for some sort of insolvency or bankruptcy procedure under which a country can apply to a neutral body for protection from its creditors. The two questions for discussion could be:

3.a) Should controls be imposed on new lending, and what should they be?

3.b) Should international law be changed to create a procedure to allow governments to not pay debts in special circumstances?

If so, how?

Campaigns issues to discuss

A further campaigns strategy paper will be posted and circulated in September. But many people feel that highest priority should be the G8 summit in Cologne, Germany, 18-20 June 1998. We need to discuss joint actions for the run-up to the meeting to ensure that we have maximum impact – we were very effective at this year’s G8 in Birmingham, but we must do more in Cologne.

Another important meeting will be the World Council of Churches meeting in Harare, Zimbabwe in December 1998.

Nothing is fixed – yet

Nothing is fixed – neither the agenda nor the questions for discussion. But Rome is less than 3 months away, and we need to firm up the meeting and start the debate.

All notes, comments, suggestions, papers, and reports -- both on policy and campaigns -- should be sent to Joe Hanlon on jhanlon@jubilee2000uk.org

Join the debate.

Best regards
Joe Hanlon

[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.]

• Policy debate
• Policy papers