Jubilee USA
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jubilee USA Network is an alliance of churches, diverse faith communities, and labor, environmental, solidarity, and community organizations. They aim to build a grassroots movement to achieve the complete cancellation of debt owed by countries with high levels of human need, the cancellation of odious debt, and an end to the imposition of economic policies as a condition for debt relief. Jubilee USA promotes its mission through public education, grassroots organizing, media outreach, policy analysis and advocacy.
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[edit] History
In the late 1990s, a range of religious groups and individuals came together under the banner of Jubilee 2000, engaging with their communities and challenging policy makers to address the crushing debt crisis. This activism may have contributed to subsequent government commitments: During the 1999 G8 meeting in Cologne, Germany, the US promised to cancel 100% of the debt owed to the US by the qualifying countries. Jubilee lobbied the Congress to make this pledge a reality. In 2000 and 2001, the US Congress allocated $769 million for bilateral and multilateral debt relief.[citation needed]
When Jubilee 2000 was dissolved, as planned, at the end of 2000, Jubilee USA was formed to continue the campaign in the USA.
In 2005, pressure from Jubilee USA Network and global partners in the Global Call to Make Poverty History helped keep global poverty on the agenda of world leaders.
Debt campaigners assert that much remains to be done. They state that more countries must be added to the initiative, more creditors included, and economic conditionalities eliminated. The Unfinished Agenda on International Debt
[edit] Platform
The following is the platform of the Jubilee USA Network as cited on their website. Jubilee Platform
Recognizing that much of the debt charged to many countries is unjust and unpayable, and profoundly aware of the great social and environmental toll that these debts exact, the Jubilee USA Network calls for a Jubilee cancellation of debt that includes:
1. Definitive debt cancellation of the international debt owed by countries burdened with high levels of human need and environmental distress which are unable to meet the basic needs of their people or achieve a level of sustainable development that ensures a decent quality of life.
2. Definitive debt cancellation, in addition, of debts found to be odious, wherever they exist, through a just and equitable process not controlled by the creditors;
3. Definitive debt cancellation that benefits countries’ impoverished majorities, is accountable to them and advances their authentic participation in determining the direction of their economies and societies;
4. Definitive debt cancellation that is not externally conditioned on economic policy prescriptions, such as IMF-designed and imposed Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs);
5. Acknowledgment of the responsibility of both lenders and borrowers and action to recover resources that were diverted by corrupt and undemocratic regimes, institutions and individuals;
6. The emergence of global economic policies and trade rules that eradicate poverty promote sustainable human development and prevent recurring, destructive cycles of indebtedness
