The Jubilee Blog

The Road to Recovery: Haiti

By Moriam Durosinmi-Etti.

On Tuesday January 12, 2010, at about noon, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti at the depth of 8.1 miles. After about 8 aftershocks, out of 9 million residents, 92 thousand were killed, 300 thousand were injured and millions were left homeless.

Before the earthquake, Haiti was a country already struggling to hold its head up high, with its health and most if not all of its other sector resource starved and understaffed.

The earthquake officially changed their position, crippling their health, economy and other sectors in the government,making it the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Since the earthquake, the crime rate in the country sky rocketed, especially against women and young girls. With the justice system crippled, the offenders continue their ways.

This week, I had the opportunity to go for the Haiti briefing at the Rayburn building on July 27, 2010. This hearing discussed the current problems of Haiti and their supposed solutions. The hearing was quite educative, because it gave me an insight to the current situations and problems in Haiti. Its been six months since the earthquake and 98% of the country is still filled qith debris from buildings and the dead not fully buried.

Inside Nigeria.

By Moriam Durosinmi-Etti

Being originally from Nigeria, I can say that she is one of the most populous countries in the world. Nigeria has the potential of being one of the world’s richest and strongest countries in the world, but it was delayed by three decades of military rule, corruption and degradation of public institutuions.

 

The restoration of democracy and subsequent economic reforms put Nigeria back on track towards achieving its full economic potential. Today I can proudly say that my motherland has one of the fastest growing economies in the world and made history in April 2006 by becoming the first African nation to completely pay its debt (estimated $30 billion) to the Paris Club.

An Education in Zambia

By Patricia Rumer, Debt Detective  
On my travels, I took some time to investigate one of the key pieces in fighting poverty: education. I wanted to know: has debt cancellation helped the education sector? What have been the victories? The challenges?

Education is a primary goal for the Zambian government, the World Bank and civil society.  In visits to three schools:  one basic (primary);  open school and a secondary school everyone agrees that Zambia has achieved parity among girls and boys at the primary level which is one of the objectives of MDG # 2 – universal primary education. 

Although statistics vary, it is estimated that 16% of the national budget goes to education (the Ministry of Finance calculates that 30% of the national budget goes to Education and Health Care combined).

Eldar Chirwa, UNDP economist, stated that Zambia is making progress on all of the MDG’s.  Saul Banda, formerly Jubilee Zambia staff and now at the Ministry of Education, cited that 5000 new teachers have been recruited in the past three years.  He estimates that 50 secondary schools out of 100 planned new schools will be finished this academic year.  

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN FOR CHILDREN AND THEIR PARENTS?

Six Months Later: Will Haiti Suffer from Debt Déjà Vu?

By Julia Dowling and Alexandra Zarecky 

Monday, July 12, 2010 was the six-month anniversary of the earthquake that devastated Haiti.  In response to the estimated 230,000 dead, 300,000 injured, 1,000,000 made homeless, and a majority of the nation’s infrastructure destroyed, Haiti received stunning international support.  Jubilee USA’s own activists mobilized across the country right after the quake, calling for the nation’s debt to be eliminated from the growing list of concerns for its well being.  By May 28th a large portion of Haiti’s debt to financial institutions, totaling $709 million, had been canceled by the World Bank and InterAmerican Development Bank, and the international community had committed to future assistance in the form of grants, not loans.  At an aid conference in March, donor pledges totaled $5.3 billion for the country’s recovery and reconstruction through a special fund. 

However, six months later, some disturbing figures reveal that much of the results from our efforts may be all talk and no action.  The millions of dollars promised by governments around the world for Haiti’s recovery have come into question – many financial promises have not yet actualized.  According to CNN, less than 2% of the promised $5.3 billion has actually been given to the recovery fund.  Haitian lives remain at stake as governments postpone the delivery of aid.  To add insult to injury, this past week the IMF announced that it will provide Haiti a $60 million loan to boost the country's international reserves.  While it is the IMF's most concessional financing, with zero percent interest until 2011 and a 5-year grace period, the loan threatens to return Haiti into a cylce of debt. 

Meet Given Lubinda!

A Zambian Member of Parliament, an advocate for debt monitoring and greater accountability    

By Pat Rumer, Jubilee Debt Detective  
POST-DEBT CANCELLATION – An Update

Given Lubinda was optimistic in 2007 shortly after the debt cancellation deal about Zambia’s progress in investing the debt savings into poverty related programs- particularly in primary education.  “Now, he said, he can neither identify debt savings in the budget nor in the President’s speech about the budget.”  There have been some poverty-reduction programs but with minimal impact.

Given provided valuable insights into the reasons why Zambia has not done more to distribute the benefits of debt cancellation since 2006.  The past president, Levy Mwanawasa, who was in power during the debt cancellation – HIPC process, died in August 2008.  He had introduced some programs to benefit the low income persons from debt relief.  Unfortunately, the current President Banda was not in power during the HIPC/Jubilee campaign and does not understand the commitments made to the people in regards to the debt cancellation process.  In particular, he does not grasp the painful circumstances that Zambia underwent with HIPC process, according to MP Lubinda. 

An Intern's Insight to Debt Cancellation

By Moriam Durosinmi-Etti

As far as I can remember, poor countries have been exploited by banks and richer countries by borrowing money from them. Because of this, the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) was initiated in 1996 and further amended in 1999 to speed up the debt relief for the poor countries. By enhancing the HIPC, a broader group of countries were allowed to qualify for larger volumes of debt relief. With the HIPC initiative, creditors are able to cut down the debt of countries by 90% but many are still finding it difficult to pay up due to the vulture creditors.

Liberia's Debt Cancelled: 29th and World's Poorest Country Reaches Completion Point

By Alexandra Zarecky                                                                                     

For years, Jubilee USA and tens of thousands of supporters have been calling for immediate debt cancellation for Liberia, and helped secure financing to clear the nation’s arrears to the IMF in 2007.  Finally those calls have been heard.  On June 29, Liberia, the world’s most indebted country relative to its income, had its debt canceled.  The nation’s foreign debt levels had sometimes reached over 1,000% of its Gross National Income over the last 10 years.  Just to settle its debt, Liberia would have had to pay creditors its $350 million budget for 28 years.