Further Action
Email the Finance Minister
Last year the G8 promised to cancel the debt of 18 countries. Zambia is one of these countries. They will now be able to employ new teachers, build new schools, and help prevent HIV and AIDS. Other countries aren’t as lucky as Zambia…At least 40 countries are still in need of debt relief, and those who have had their debt cancelled face unfair regulations. There’s a lot left to do to end the scandal of poor countries living in debt.
Please send this email to the Minister of Finance to remind him that the Aotearoa New Zealand Government must help by demanding debt cancellation for the worlds' poor!
- Copy the text in the box below into an email and add your name at the bottom.
- Copy the following address into the email: mcullen@ministers.govt.nz
- Press send!
Hon Dr Michael Cullen
Minister of Finance Parliament Buildings
Wellington
Dear Dr Cullen,
I was glad that the New Zealand government supported the IMF and World Bank’s Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative to cancel some of the debt of impoverished developing countries. It was a good start but I think New Zealand can do more to help poor countries get a fairer deal with the IMF and World Bank.
Take a country like Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, with a debt of US$ 1.4 billion. Haiti has a proud history of being the first independent black-nation state, when its slaves revolted and got rid of its French colonial masters in 1804. In return for its freedom the French demanded that Haiti pay 150 million francs and then when they could not pay, lent them the money. In the end they only had to pay 90 million francs but it took almost a century to repay this loan instead of investing in their own development. If that was not enough, the country also suffered for 29 years under a father and son dictatorship. It is estimated that 45% of today’s debt had its origins in that period and most of that money was siphoned off by the Duvalier family. The World Bank and IMF know that this is odious debt but they still insist on it being repaid.
Haiti is a desperately poor country in need of help. Life expectancy in Haiti is just 52 years, Close to 80% of its people live in poverty, 23% of children under 5 years are malnourished and 5.6% of the population are infected with HIV. For 2005 Haiti was scheduled to pay US$56.3 million in debt service. This works out at about $5 per person which is about the same amount it spent in education per person in 1999. Under these circumstances the country will make no progress.
In April this year Haiti finally qualified to enter the HIPC (Heavily Indebted Poor Country) initiative but it will have to follow even more IMF and World Bank economic prescriptions to receive further relief. It has been forced to privatize its sugar and cement industries and liberalise its trade already. Twenty years ago Haiti was almost self-sufficient in rice but now rice production has fallen and most is imported. The result has been devastating to the local economy.
New Zealand could do much more to help poor countries like Haiti by demanding full debt cancellation for the world’s poorest countries and by ending harmful conditions that come with the loans. The debt relief so far is just not enough to do the trick.
I urge your government to MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY by insisting that the IMF and World Bank change the way they do business. Poor people deserve better.
Yours sincerely,
(your name)
