Jubilee ResearchMedia Center

Final Communique of the International Jubilee 2000 Conference

held in Bamako, Mali, 21-23 April, 2001.

We, the representatives of Jubilee 2000 campaigns from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe, have met here in Bamako to consider the future of the international Jubilee 2000 campaign. We have evaluated, assessed and analysed our campaigns of the last five years, and heard in detail of the work, the stories and challenges facing campaigners in 27 countries, in different continents.

We are proud of our achievements, but we are also conscious of how much more there is to be done. We have demonstrated that ordinary people, uniting in solidarity locally, nationally and across borders and continents, are able to transform their own circumstances; to transform public opinion and to influence governments and powerful financial institutions. As a result of our campaign, the IMF, the World Bank and the Paris Club, have been forced first, to address the question of debt, and second, to give some concessions to a small group of the poorest countries. As a result of our campaigning, some debtor governments will be transferring reduced debt payments to rich creditors in the west, and these governments will therefore have additional resources for use in social programmes for their people. We note that in Mali itself, before our campaign; the government would have been paying $105 million a year in debt service; but will now pay S64 million in debt service, releasing about $40 million which the Malian Government may choose to use on social programmes, in'partnership With civil society.

However, we also know that Mali's debt payments are about to rise again, thanks to unfair terms of trade caused by the fall in cotton prices and the rise in oil prices.

Creditors have taken the opportunity of our campaign to mislead the public and intensify the extraction and transfer of wealth from poor countries to rich countries. They have done this through the liberalisation of the economy, deteriorating terms of trade, and through the privatisation of assets by foreigners. As a consequence, e.g. in Mali, the debt will very soon increase to become unsustainable, even on World Bank definitions.

Secondly, creditors, like the World Bank and the IMF, have used our campaign to raise resources from western taxpayers for their own enrichment.

This means that the challenge of liberating the debtor nations from foreign exploitation and domination; and from the clutches of OECD creditor cartels'like that of the Paris Club, tlie IMF and the World Bank is even greater.

After deep reflection and consideration we have agreed a common vision -formulated in the Statement of the Jubilee International Movement for Economic and Social Justice Statement. (JMI). At the heart of our vision is our determination to globalise hope. To commit ourselves to the transformation of the current globalisation model. We want to participate in the design of economic systems that will include, not exclude, the already dispossessed. We want to develop inclusive, transparent, participative and accountable economic systems that are ethical; based on social and economic justice; social equity and environmental sustainability. Economic systems that will allow our communities, societies and nations to develop on their own terms, democratically, without foreign domination and exploitation.

This envisioning of our hopes, aspirations and goals, has led us to agree and resolve on a bold step: to transform ourselves from a specific campaign for debt cancellation, and into a democratic, global, social movement— for transformation of the economic system and for global justice.

For this reason we resolved to organise ourselves as an international movement for the next stage in our common struggle. We resolved to build the Jubilee International Movement for Economic and Social Justice. (JMI).

This Bamako Conference has reflected our diversity, both culturally, linguistically, organisationally, politically and socially; but also our overwhelming unity. We are proud of this, and the warmth, generosity and hospitality of our hosts, the Malian Jubilee 3000 campaign, has helped us to celebrate our diversity - in unity. We have resolved that tlie defining element of our movement will be our unity.

We have resolved to give life to our movement, knowing full well that this will be difficult and complex. We will develop our organisation with great caution, recognising that many movements have been shipwrecked by a rapid congealing of organisational forms. United by our common vision, we will carefully, after full consultation, set out to devise new, democratic, transparent and appropriate organisational forms, making full use of modern technology.

We have resolved to develop structures that will be rooted in the following principles:

a) that they should be transparent, democratic and accountable to the movement as a whole;

b) that they should be inclusive;

c) that they should be representative of all countries and regions;

d) that they should allow for the autonomy of national campaigns and

movements; respecting the diversity and particularities of each, within the general, agreed goals and objectives of the movement;

e) that they should sustain our collective, and united effort;

f) that they should provide for the exchange of information and for effective communication between all of us.

a) that they should be transparent, democratic and accountable to the movement as a whole;

b) that they should be inclusive;

c) that they should be representative of all countries and regions;

d) that they should allow for the autonomy of national campaigns and

movements; respecting the diversity and particularities of each, within the general, agreed goals and objectives of the movement;

e) that they should sustain our collective, and united effort;

f) that they should provide for the exchange of information and for effective communication between all of us.

We have resolved in principle to meet regularly, as an international movement.

We have resolved to establish a clearing house for the exchange of information and communication.

We have resolved to establish a Steering Group, made up of two elected representatives from each of the four regions represented at this conference: Africa, Latin America, Asia and Europe. The following were elected to this group:

Africa: Akato Ampaw - Ghana Jubilee 2000 campaign.

Hemsing Hurrynag - Mauritius, Indian Ocean Islands Jubilee 2000

campaign.

Asia: Francisco Pasquale - Forum for Economic Justice, Philippines Aftab

Mughal - Pakistan Freedom from Debt Coalition.

Latin

America: Ricardo Verastegui - Peru Jubilee 2000 campaign

Francisco Machado - Honduras Jubilee 2000 campaign

Europe: Two delegates to be decided after consultation with other European campaigns.

Wednesday, 25th April, 2001

Signed by:

Ricardo Verastegui (Chair of the Steering Group) - Peru

Sada Diarra (interim facilitator for the JMI) - Mali

Francisco Machado - Honduras

Hemsing Hurrynag - Indian Ocean Islands

Akato Ampaw - Ghana

Aftab Mughal -Pakistan

Francisco Pasquale - Philippines