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Academics back call for new debt framework (May
2003) The Association of University
Teachers, the union that represents academics in the ‘old’ universities,
meeting in its Summer Council in Scarborough on 9th May,
unanimously declared its support for a fair and transparent system of
independent arbitration for debt relief. The motion, moved by Dr David
Golding, a member of the national board of JDC, was as follows: “The
senate of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne has endorsed the call by
Kofi Annan, the secretary general of the UN, for a new, fair and transparent
‘debt arbitration process to balance the interests of creditors and
debtors and introduce greater discipline into their relations’. The
objective should be to secure and protect resources for essential services
such as schooling, basic medical care, clean water and public health
information programmes. Council welcomes the university’s initiative on
reform of debt relief mechanisms, and urges all local associations to
encourage their institutions to support this campaign, initiated by
Newcastle University.” The text of David Golding’s
address to Council is given below. “No
movement has impacted Britain as much as the debt campaign since Wilberforce
led the anti-slave trade campaign,” said Gordon Brown, but happily the
impact has also been felt further afield. A
recent, unsolicited email from Dr Simon Challand, a Newcastle medical
graduate who works in Uganda, reported that “There have been huge
improvements in health and education”. Debt relief for Uganda has meant
free primary education and put an extra three and half million children into
school: “Everywhere you go you can see new classrooms going up...” says
Dr Challand. As a member
of the national board of the Jubilee Debt Campaign, I express our sincere
thanks to the Association for its support – we were, after all, only the
second union to sign up to the coalition. Yet
the debt relief promised remains grotesque in its inadequacy. The Disasters
Emergency Committee of British aid agencies had a target of £10 million for
the Southern Africa famine, but even after relief, Africa spends more than
twice that amount on debt repayments, each and every day of the year.
Ethiopia, for example, is due to repay 73 million dollars this year, even as
millions of its people face starvation. As the celebrated Harvard economist,
Professor Jeffrey Sachs, has said: "The IMF and World Bank are still
collecting money from these countries when millions of people are dying for
lack of basic medical care". These
glaring defects are due, we believe, to a basic flaw in the underlying
process. We have, in effect, a bankruptcy procedure which lacks any element
whatever of independent arbitration or right of appeal - a flagrant
violation of a fundamental principle of justice. In contrast, Kofi Annan has
called for a new “debt arbitration process to balance the interests of
creditors and sovereign debtors and introduce greater discipline into their
relations”. The
objective of such a procedure should be to secure and protect resources for
essential services such as schooling, basic medical care, clean water and
public health information programmes. It should also monitor the stewardship
of resources already made available, with a view to giving far deeper debt
relief to those who are using those resources responsibly. The Newcastle Senate has unanimously endorsed the Secretary General’s proposal and our debt group is preparing an initiative - the “Universities’ Call for debt relief Reform” - to seek wider expressions of support. Its launch, originally set for March (when certain minor international distractions intervened!), is now firmly scheduled for October, when we intend to write to every Vice-Chancellor in the country. “I would be honoured to be a Patron of this new initiative by universities,” says Desmond Tutu, the Nobel Peace Prize winner. Expressions
of support have also been received from the V-Cs of Newcastle and Oxford;
Lord Megnad Desai, professor of economics at the LSE (“I
am delighted to associate myself with the... campaign”); Baroness O’Neill, Principle of Newnam, Cambridge (“An
admirable initiative); the Director of UNCTAD, The U.N. Conference on
Trade & Development in Geneva (“I
am very happy to give my full personal support to this worthy initiative”
). Kofi Annan has also written to us to say he welcomes the involvement of
universities in this matter. During
the past three days, we have discussed many matters of great importance to
the future of our young people. But consider the situation confronting their
counterparts in Zambia. According to Dr Dorothy Logie, an authority on
African health care systems, “Many young girls now appreciate that in
order to escape from oppression and intensifying poverty, they need
education. One of the commonest reasons for girls becoming infected with
HIV/AIDS is by selling sex to older men to pay for their school fees.”
Meanwhile, Zambia has to pay 4 million dollars each week in debt service –
and that’s after so-called “relief”. Complacency with such a situation
must surely rank as one of the most degraded and obscene mind-sets ever to
disgrace the human condition. “Every
night and every morn, some to misery are born; Every morn and every night,
some are born to sweet delight,” wrote Blake. Those
of us who were born to the truly sweet delight of higher education could do
nothing better with our abilities than to seek, in however small a way, the
welfare of those born to the endless night of ignorance. Over 300 million
children, most of them girls, are being deprived of the opportunity for even
basic literacy and each one of them is hammering on the doors of this
Congress, as on the doors of our busy lives, asking for just a little
attention. This motion is dedicated to those children and I commend it to
you. David
W. Golding (PhD, DSc) Spokesperson for JDC at Newcastle University (Principal Patron, Professor Christopher Edwards, Vice-Chancellor). Email, d.w.golding@ncl.ac.uk |
