The Jubilee Blog

A Present Day Victory for the Future of Debt Relief and Development

By: Mary Donahue

Celebration is in order after a huge victory for the principles of responsible lending and borrowing was won in Doha, Qatar at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) meetings held in the end of April. This round of UNCTAD meetings was crucial to the future vision and responsibilities of UNCTAD - and subsequently debt relief - as financial ministers and representatives from the around the world met to discuss the conference’s mandate, and thus set the course for its future work. UNCTAD has long been a leading forum for consensus building on debt relief initiatives, like HIPC and MDRI that have led to hundreds of billions of dollars in debt relief.  But leading into the meetings, it was leaked that there were secret talks of eliminating debt and financial reform from the mandate, and it was clear that the battle to keep debt relief and principles of responsible lending and borrowing a priority would be hard fought.

Jubilee's Executive Director, Eric LeCompte at the UNCTAD meetings in Doha, Qatar

Justice at the G8 and G20: The need for an international debt court

By: Jeremy Weyl

As millions continue to live in extreme poverty, global summits meet to discuss and plan solutions.  The G8 and G20 global economic summits have come to represent spaces of great political and economic power as well as grassroots resisistance to injustices in the global economy.  Representatives of the largest and most elite economies will make decisions that impact the entire world – this is the time to mobilize diverse communities and call for a moral and sustainable economy.

This year, the G8 will be meeting in the United States at Camp David in May, and the G20 will be meeting in Mexico the following month.  Jubilee USA Network and other civil society groups and communities are taking action to push for policies and mechanisms to be discussed at these crucial meetings that can support the creation of a more just economy.