Dear All:
Here is another item related to globalisation--the current reality of
debt. I believe ecofeminism in all its guises needs to consider the
serious and profound implications of these issues. I know a number
of WED and GAD researchers and practitioners address it, but does
anyone on ECOFEM have any comments, articles, etcetera they wish to
share on this topic? ECOFEM hasn't spent too much time on this, but
I think it's a valubale thread worthy of extensive discussion. Any
takers?
Stefanie Rixecker
Coordinator ECOFEM
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
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From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Organization: Indian Social Institute
Dear Friends
Please find the breakfast speech of Cardinal Mahony of Los
Angeles on 5th November. You may find it useful.
Walter Fernandes
=================================================
"SOLIDARITY and the DEBT CRISIS"
Address by
Cardinal Roger Mahony
Archbishop of Los Angeles
Fourth Annual Public Policy Breakfast
Wednesday, November 5, 1997
I. Introduction
Good morning, and welcome to the Fourth Annual Public
Policy Breakfast. I am pleased that Mr. James Wolfensohn, President
of the World Bank, is here this morning to discuss an issue of great
concern to the Catholic Church and to so many of us. My thanks go to
Joan Harper and the members of the Justice and Peace Commission of the
Archdiocese of Los Angeles for their work throughout the year and, in
particular, for the organization of the Public Policy Breakfast. In
addition, I would like to personally thank the Los Angeles Times for
the use of their wonderful facility again this year.
II. Confronting the Crisis of Unsustainable Debt
The topic I have chosen for our gathering may have taken
some by surprise. Third World debt is not exactly a subject one
might hear discussed around the breakfast table. All of us are
keenly aware of the immediate pressures which weigh heavily on
families in our own communities:
* violence in our neighborhoods and in the home;
* disparities in wealth and income that leave many in
poverty;
* access to adequate health care; and
* the quality of our educational system.
So given these issues which may seem more imminent, why
do we focus on the topic of Third World debt?
We turn our attention to international debt in order to
reaffirm our commitment to work with our sisters and brothers in
developing countries who struggle to escape from under the weight of
their country's debt burden.
For many in the Third World, their country's staggering
foreign debt is one of the most crippling economic impediments to
securing the basics which make life dignified: food, housing,
education, and health care.
As the Bishops of Africa wrote in 1994:
Africa is home to hundreds of millions of the poorest
people on earth. They are shackled with a burden of unpayable debt,
which is both a symptom and a cause of their poverty. It is a symptom
because they would not have borrowed if they were not poor; it is a
cause because the crushing burden of debt repayments makes them poorer
still.
In the poorest countries, debt repayments divert scarce
financial resources from social investments necessary for sustainable
development: health care, schools, food production for domestic
consumption, environmental protection and preservation, and other key
foundations of the social infrastructure.
The scope and impact of the external debt of developing
nations is staggering. Consider these figures:
* As of 1995, developing nations owed foreign creditors in excess of
$2 trillion. * Thirty-five of the world's poorest countries owed $226
billion in 1995-less than the United States' fiscal year 1998 defense
budget. Twenty-eight of these countries are in Africa. * In 1995, the
cumulative debt of sub-Saharan Africa, excluding South Africa and
Namibia, was $199 billion-a figure that is 20 percent higher than
these countries' total income. * Arrears-the portion of the debt that
cannot be paid-account for one-third of Africa's total debt. In 1994
alone, African countries paid $11 billion to service their debt. This,
however, was only half of the $22 billion they needed to pay in order
to stay current for that year. * Between 1990 and 1993, Mozambique
was able to make only 10 percent of its scheduled payments adding
approximately $570 million to its debt stock. As a result of the debt
payments the government was able to make, staples of the social
infrastructure like health care and schooling have suffered
dramatically. Malaria, measles, and acute respiratory infections
account for 50 percent of in-hospital child deaths-all treatable
conditions! Outbreaks of dysentery, diarrhea, and cholera are
compounded by the fact that only one-third of the rural population has
potable drinking water or sufficient caloric intake.
* In 1994, Mozambique made only 20 percent of its scheduled payments.
Yet this amount represented:
* more than double the amount of recurrent expenditures in the
education sector;
* more than four times the recurrent expenditures in the health
sector; and
* more than the recurrent budgets for health, education, police, and
judicial systems combined.
* As a result, out of Mozambique's total
population of between 16 and 18 million people: * 10 million do not
have safe drinking water; * two-thirds of the adults are illiterate;
two-thirds of those are women; * one million children do not attend
primary schools; * 9 million do not have access to the formal health
system; * each year, 190,000 children die before their fifth
birthday; and * over 10,000 women die each year from
childbirth-related complications.
These figures barely begin to illustrate the toll that
debt service exacts on the people of developing nations. But they are
the foundation of a moral argument for the reduction or cancellation
of debt. When children go hungry or die from preventable diseases,
when potable drinking water is not available, when more is spent on
debt service than on health care and education, then the cost of debt,
in human terms, is unjustified.
III. Proclaiming a Jubilee Year
In 1994, Pope John Paul II issued the Apostolic Letter
entitled Tertio Millennio Adveniente-As the Third Millennium Draws
Near. In it, he stated that
...a commitment to justice and peace in a world like
ours, marked by so many conflicts and intolerable social and economic
inequalities, is a necessary condition for the preparation and
celebration of the jubilee. Thus, in the spirit of Leviticus
(25:8-12), Christians will have to raise their voice on behalf of all
the poor of the world, proposing the jubilee as an appropriate time to
give thought, among other things, to reducing substantially, if not
canceling outright, the international debt which threatens the future
of many nations.
In the Jewish and Christian traditions, the Jubilee year
fell every 50 years. The book of Leviticus tells us that
...you shall hallow the 50th year and proclaim liberty
throughout the land to all its inhabitants; it shall be a jubilee year
for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you
shall return to his family (Lev 25:10).
The jubilee year was a time of renewal and emancipation.
It was an opportunity to mend broken relationships, to reconcile the
community to God, and to rectify the condition of the poor.
It is in this light that the
...jubilee year was meant to restore equality among all
the children of Israel, offering new possibilities to families which
had lost their property and even their personal freedom*The jubilee
year was a reminder to the rich that a time would come when their
Israelite slaves would once again become their equals and would be
able to reclaim their rights.
The Church's advocacy for the reduction or cancellation
of Third World debt emerges from its abiding concern for the poor. The
preferential option for the poor, which is a central principle of the
Church's social tradition, is deeply rooted in the prophetic writings
of the Hebrew scriptures. The prophets remind us that the quality of
justice in the land and the integrity of the community's relationship
with God is measured by how the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the
alien are treated. Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, right worship
and fidelity to the covenant relationship with God are judged by the
community's treatment of the poor and marginalized. IV. The Challenge
of Debt Relief
The debt crisis calls on us to re-affirm our solidarity
with the poor in developing countries through a call for debt relief.
Those in economic and financial circles may all too
easily dismiss this "Jubilee talk" of forgiving Third World debt as
reckless banter. This would be both unfortunate and short-sighted.
Contrary to what some opponents of debt relief may say, there is
neither the expectation nor the desire for the World Bank and other
international financial institutions to close their doors come January
in the year 2000. Quite the contrary, the World Bank, its partner
institutions, and creditor nations, each share responsibility for the
current situation of unsustainable debt. Each, therefore, should take
active leadership in working with debtor nations to devise just and
humane solutions for relieving the debt burden. It is in this spirit
that the Pontifical Justice and Peace Commission wrote that
...the burden (for resolving the debt crisis) should not
fall disproportionately on poor countries*it is morally wrong to
deprive a nation of the means to meet the basic needs of its people in
order to repay debt.
To those who dismiss debt relief as unrealistic, I would
ask: Are banks and northern economies realistic if they expect the
current crisis to continue along without disastrous implications? Is
it realistic for creditors to expect debtor nations to meet the
complicated steps and requirements of the Heavily Indebted Poor
Country Initiative that leave many worthy candidates for debt
reduction or cancellation with little hope of relief in the near- or
mid-term? Is it realistic for creditors to stubbornly cling to an
economic approach and philosophy that has impoverished so many people,
in so many countries?
Mr. Wolfensohn and his colleagues at the World Bank who
are committed to debt relief for poor countries face a daunting
challenge. Not the least of these obstacles is the reluctance of
creditor nations, like the United States, to seriously commit to debt
relief. It is the creditor nations who sponsor the World Bank who
have insisted upon layers of requirements and protracted time-lines
which effectively quash the hope of debt relief for the vast majority
of the heavily indebted poor countries. They, however, also have the
power to change these requirements. The spirit of the HIPC Initiative
must not be crushed by stringent and, in some cases, unobtainable
requirements.
As the Catholic Bishops of the United States stated in
1989, past efforts to address the debt issue were short-term in
nature and designed primarily to protect creditors and the financial
system. With the debt crisis now clear to all, it is time for new
initiatives guided by an ethic which places highest priority on the
human and moral consequences of any new debt relief proposals.
I would encourage the World Bank to work with its
government sponsors-and when necessary, to pressure and cajole
them-to ensure a "rapid application of new debt reduction terms to the
widest number of countries" by the year 2000.
Some may argue that the World Bank, the IMF, and other
international financial institutions should not interfere with the
policies and prerogatives of sovereign states (when referring to
creditor nations). But one must remember that macro-economic reforms,
such as those required by structural adjustment policies, seek to
intervene in debtor countries in ways that developed nations would
find intolerable.
Initiatives, such as the "Mauritius Mandate" outlined by
the United Kingdom in September, demonstrate the type of leadership
possible on the issue of debt cancellation and in setting expeditious
time-lines for debt reduction.
The current debt overhang limits growth by discouraging
foreign private investment and by diverting foreign aid from domestic
investment to debt service. Private investors are more likely to
invest in developing nations that are made more secure and stable due
to canceled or significantly reduced foreign debt. Foreign aid, in
turn, would be more effective when used for social investments rather
than debt repayment.
Future loans should be scrutinized carefully to ensure
that they further the goals of human development. In other words,
will future debt protect human life, promote human dignity, foster an
economic system in which participation and inclusion are inviolable
characteristics, and encourage stewardship of natural resources?
In the same vain, debt relief should include agreements
between creditors and debtors that the money saved through a
reduction or cancellation in debt service will be converted into
funding for health care, sanitation, education, food and the like.
These "social conditionalities" should be determined with the full
participation of people in those countries. It is along these lines
that creditor nations should take up the United Kingdom's challenge,
again outlined in the Mauritius Mandate, to suspend programs for HIPC
countries such as export credit guarantees for arm sales. These
subsidies make it easier for developing countries to buy armaments
than food.
V. Solidarity and the Debt Crisis
The demands of solidarity in an increasingly globalized
world argue for Third World debt to be a concern for all of us.
Creditor nations, like the United States, and international financial
institutions, like the World Bank, represent each of us in the global
economy. The moral imperative of this situation impels us to call on
these creditors and institutions to reassess their current criteria
for debt reduction to allow more nations to qualify more quickly for
debt relief and, hopefully in some cases, cancellation of debt.
The Catholic Church is certainly not alone in its
concern for the poor. But as an institution with a 2000 year
history, we seize this moment on a issue of great urgency. Mr.
Wolfensohn, the Catholic Church does not agree with World Bank
policies in every area. We do, however, applaud the efforts which the
World Bank has undertaken under your unflagging leadership to put this
issue of debt relief on the table. Yet, there is still much more to
be done before the bold vision of the HIPC initiative touches the
lives of men, women, and children in Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe,
Honduras, Nicaragua, and other countries with unsustainable debt. The
success of debt relief initiatives will be measured by the degree to
which the lives of persons in those countries are improved.
As we move closer to the year 2000, more religious
groups and organizations must join the campaign for debt reduction and
cancellation. The indebtedness of developing countries will be
discussed at the upcoming Special Assembly for America which begins
later this month in Rome. It is my hope that the Catholic Church of
the Americas will commit itself to work in a unified way to advocate
for the relief and cancellation of unsustainable debt in all forty-one
countries eligible under the HIPC initiative. When so many lives hang
in the balance, debt cannot be reduced simply to a question of
finances.
In closing, I would ask us to prayerfully consider the
words of Pope John Paul II when he asked:
Is it merely a rhetorical question to ask how many
infants and children die every day in Africa because resources are now
being swallowed up in debt repayment? There is no time to lament
policies of the past or those elements in the international financial
picture which have led up to the present situation. Now it is the
time for a new and courageous international solidarity, a solidarity
not based in self-interest but inspired and guided by a true concern
for human beings.
Thank you.
- --------------------------------------------------
Peter J. Henriot, S.J.
JESUIT CENTRE FOR THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION
P.O. Box 37774 10101 Lusaka, Zambia
Tel: 260-1-250-603 Fax: 260-1-250-156
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
#John Sweeney [EMAIL PROTECTED]
# Centro de Reflexion Teologica, Mexico, D.F.
#
# Le invito a ver nuestras paginas WWW:
# http://mixcoac.uia.mx
# MEXPAZ: un servicio informatico:
# http://mixcoac.uia.mx/~jsweeney/mexpaz.html
#
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End of India Environment Digest V1 #7
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Dr. Stefanie S. Rixecker
Department of Resource Management
Lincoln University, Canterbury
PO Box 56
Aotearoa New Zealand
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fax: 64-03-325-3841
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