The Jubilee Blog

Global Economic Recovery, Debt, Climate, Vaccines Top G7 Finance Agenda

By Zachary Conti, 

G7 finance ministers met virtually to discuss economic recovery in the face of the coronavirus. The G7 agenda included global debt problems, vaccine distribution for developing countries and accessing global reserve funds or Special Drawing Rights. The United Kingdom, hosting this year's G7 process, prioritized climate as a key issue of the UK's G7 presidency.

“The G7 is looking at the most crucial issues for a global recovery that includes everyone,” said Eric LeCompte, the Executive Director of the religious development group Jubilee USA Network and a United Nations finance expert. “Debt, vaccine distribution, protecting our planet and getting enough aid to vulnerable populations are the critical issues.”

Japan's Finance Minister Tarō Asō noted that accessing Special Drawing Rights, a type of currency that could be generated to support all countries, was an important G7 discussion point.

"While no decisions on Special Drawing Rights have been made yet, we continue to see progress," stated LeCompte. "We are seeing more movement on debt relief for developing countries."

The G7 sees debt relief as a critical global response tool for developing countries. Last year the G20 adopted a debt reduction process that allows up to 73 of the world's poorest countries to seek support. Since the beginning of the year, three African countries already sought support under the mechanism. 

Climate issues were raised as an important focus for finance ministers.

“The UK and the US believe now is the time to focus on climate and ensuring our planet can emerge with resilience from the current crisis,” noted LeCompte.

President Biden, as one of his first acts in office, rejoined the Paris Agreement on climate and signed an executive order putting the climate crisis at the center of the US foreign policy. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen noted the need for significant global stimulus and increasing cooperation with other G7 governments, according to a statement Treasury released.

White House Announces Puerto Rico Disaster Rebuilding Aid

By: Zachary Conti

The White House announced a $3.7 billion disaster grant for Puerto Rico to rebuild reservoirs, dams, and wastewater facilities.

“Puerto Rico suffers from a debt crisis and is still recovering from hurricanes and earthquakes,” said Eric LeCompte, the Executive Director of Jubilee USA Network, a religious development organization. "The aid is vital as Puerto Rico needs to rebuild infrastructure damaged by disasters."

As earthquakes continue to shake the US Territory, the island feels the aftermath of Hurricanes Irma and Maria which hit Puerto Rico three years ago with an estimated $100 billion in damages.

According to the White House, the new grant award from the Federal Emergency Management Administration brings total hurricane recovery funds to $40 billion. In July, Puerto Rico religious leaders wrote Congress citing the need for an additional $60 billion in recovery aid. The letter was signed by the leaders from Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran, Christian (Disciples) and Evangelical Churches, the Puerto Rico Council of Churches, Catholic Charities (Caritas), and the Puerto Rico General Bible Society.

Read the Jubilee Puerto Rico Religious Leader Letter to Congress here.

New Senate Bill Combats Shell Companies United Nations Debates Tax Havens

Washington DC - A bipartisan group of Senators introduced the "Improving Laundering Laws and Increasing Comprehensive Information Tracking of Criminal Activity in Shell Holdings (ILLICIT CASH) Act" to stop the creation of shell corporations in the United States. The announcement came within hours of world leaders raising concerns about tax havens and shell companies during the UN General Assembly High Level Dialogue on Financing for Development. 

"Shell companies support human trafficking and drain billions from developing countries," said Eric LeCompte, UN finance expert and Executive Director of the religious development group Jubilee USA Network. “This bipartisan legislation can help stop US States from being used as tax havens.”

Senators Mark R. Warner (D-VA), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Doug Jones (D-AL), Mike Rounds (R-SD), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), John Kennedy (R-LA), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), and Jerry Moran (R-KS) sponsored the legislation, which would require shell companies to disclose their true owners to the US Department of Treasury.

"Anonymous shell companies have exploited vulnerable communities through Medicaid fraud and stolen development aid in the developing world,” noted LeCompte.

Call Senate for Puerto Rico Food Assistance

The Senate is about to vote on a Puerto Rico amendment to the 2018 Farm Bill. We need you to make a quick call to your Senators now.

Please urgently call your Senators and ask them to support Senators Marco Rubio and Kirsten Gillibrand’s Farm Bill amendment to extend special disaster aid for nearly 700,000 vulnerable people across Puerto Rico.‎

Since hurricane Maria, overall poverty rates have grown beyond half of the island's population. Nearly 60 percent of children in Puerto Rico live in poverty.

Senators Rubio and Gillibrand introduced a disaster relief amendment to the Farm Bill that allows up to $635 million to be spent on Puerto Rico's version of SNAP or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Already this year because of your actions, we've won more than $30 Billion in recovery aid and provisions for Puerto Rico to rebuild to withstand future storms. For the last several years, we've moved forward measures for debt relief. Now as we move debt relief forward, this amendment helps us pull back some of the impacts of austerity policies.

Call your Senators now and ask them to support Senator Rubio and Gillibrand’s amendment to secure nutritional assistance for the most vulnerable people in Puerto Rico.

The Farm Bill is moving fast. Please call the Senate now.

Thanks,

Kate

Eric LeCompte Quoted in Politico on Disaster Recovery

By Lydia Andrews 

Eric LeCompte, Executive Director of Jubilee USA was recently quoted in Politico speaking about transparency in disaster recovery efforts in Puerto Rico. Read excerpt below and follow link to full article.

Zinke's political ties to Virgin Islands improved Interior's hurricane response, party boss says

By Ben Lefebvre

Disaster response experts say it would be inappropriate for Canegata's political connections to influence Interior's efforts in the Virgin Islands.

“These are processes that are supposed to be transparent and supposed to be above the board,” said Eric LeCompte, executive director of Jubilee USA, an anti-poverty group that has been involved in hurricane disaster relief efforts. “So, it would not be something a political party would be part of.”

Read more here. 

G7 Discusses Debt Relief for Islands as Hurricane Season Begins

By Lydia Andrews

On the first day of the 2018 hurricane season, G7 Finance and Development Ministers are reviewing proposals for debt relief and “innovative financing” when islands are hit by natural disasters. Also focusing on empowering women in the economy, the group meets in Whistler, Canada, through Sunday. These meetings will help prepare outcomes for the upcoming G7 Ministerial meeting that President Trump attends later in June.

“As a new hurricane season begins, there is an urgency for the G7 to promote crisis response tools like debt relief,” noted Jubilee USA Executive Director Eric LeCompte, who has tracked G7 meetings since 2010. “This is the first time that Finance and Development Ministers are meeting jointly at the G7 and they can promote solutions for when financial crises and humanitarian crises collide.”

Colorado State University's "2018 Tropical Meteorology Project Forecast Schedule," projects that the 2018 hurricane season could be stronger than the 2017 season. From Dominica to Puerto Rico, many islands are struggling to recover from the damage inflicted during the 2017 hurricane season. In September, Jubilee USA began collecting thousands of petitions and organized hundreds of national and local faith communities urging debt relief initiatives when hurricanes strike. These initiatives include providing “breathing space” so when natural disasters hit developing islands they can temporarily stop debt payments and put the money into disaster relief. If a debt payment moratorium is not enough, then Jubilee USA advocates restructuring the debt to deliver further aid.

In recent months major religious leaders and Heads of State went on record calling for such processes including Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne and Grenada Prime Minister Keith Mitchell. Caribbean Leaders of the Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, Pentecostal, Seventh Day Adventist, Methodist, Anglican and Episcopal Churches and the Salvation Army joined Jubilee Caribbean in urging that this process be in place before this year’s hurricanes hit. The proposals were discussed at the April United Nations Forum on Financing for Development during high-level public and private meetings. The Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church USA, United Church of Christ, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and Jubilee USA met with the White House and US G7 team around the proposals.

“Many of the islands that are prone to hurricanes already struggle with high child poverty rates and high debt burdens,” stated LeCompte. “When these islands are struggling to recover and meet the needs of their people, they shouldn’t be paying debt.”

According to Jubilee USA, since the early 2000s, debt relief processes cut the debt of some of the world’s poorest countries. In recent years, debt relief initiatives supported Haiti after it was struck by an earthquake and relieved the debts of three African countries affected by the Ebola outbreak.

Read the Jubilee Caribbean Religious Leader Statement

 

 

Eric LeCompte Featured in The Bond Buyer

By Lydia Andrews 

Eric LeCompte, Executive Director of Jubilee USA was recently highlighted in The Bond Buyer speaking on emergency relief funds, the bankruptcy process and recovery efforts in Puerto Rico. Read excerpt below and follow link to full article.

Puerto Rico Bond Holders May Have to Wait More than Two Years 

By Robert Slavin

Some observers, including Jubilee USA Network executive director Eric LeCompte and Council on Foreign Relation Senior Fellow Brad Setser, said the bankruptcy’s progress was reasonable considering the impact of Hurricanes Irma and Maria.

PROMESA “gave Puerto Rico some breathing space by allowing for a debt payment moratorium and preventing creditor litigation," LeCompte said. "PROMESA allowed Puerto Rico to default and made it disadvantageous for new predatory creditors to buy the debt. Finally, the legislation created a super bankruptcy process that is capable of restructuring all of Puerto Rico’s debt.”

LeCompte said PROMESA is the “first comprehensive debt restructuring process since the 1953 London Accord that restructured all of Germany’s debt.” He explained that by this he meant that it was the first time since the London Accord that both state-level and local government level debt was simultaneously restructured.

Read more here.

 

National Catholic Reporter Publishes Op-ed by Eric LeCompte on Vatican Release

By Lydia Andrews 

Eric LeCompte, Executive Director of Jubilee USA wrote an Op-ed featured in National Catholic Reporter called "Vatican's considerations on economic system call us to shape a new one" which talks about the Vatican's recent assessment of the economy in Oeconomicae et pecuniariae quaestiones. 

Read excerpt below and follow link to the full article.

Vatican's Consideration on economic systems calls us to shape a new one 

By: Eric LeCompte

The Vatican's recent assessment of the economy reveals a Catholic Church that is alive, engaging and relevant.

It reflects a Catholic Church that sees the suffering tied to our financial system as the church delivers aid to hurricane victims, refugees and homeless people. The document is tied to a church working with other faiths, in Puerto Rico and across the Caribbean calling for transparency, relief and an end to poverty. It illuminates the church that in 1999 helped gather 27 million petitions for the G-8 Cologne Summit, the forum of the world's leading industrial nations, urging the cancellation of debt burdens in Africa and across the developing world.

Not only do we see the continued application of Catholic teaching to understand our economy, the release is a culmination of decades of Holy See efforts to diminish poverty through the United Nations, the World Trade Organization and decision making fora around the world.

"Considerations for an Ethical Discernment Regarding Some Aspects of the Present Economic-Financial System" (Oeconomicae et pecuniariae quaestiones) shows a church spreading the Gospel outside of our church buildings and into the market place. The 15-page release from the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development show a church being relevant to current economic policy debates.

The Vatican's document lifts the reality that God has given us a rich and abundant world so each of us can reach our full potential and that we are closest to the Creator when we share these resources among us.

The global economy should support each individual to achieve their full potential, and each individual must rise to actively shape the economy to this purpose. The Vatican economy document asserts our responsibility to understand that "what is morally unacceptable is not simply to profit, but rather to avail oneself of an inequality for one's own advantage, in order to create enormous profits that are damaging to others."

In closing, the document offers each of us the invitation: "In front of the massiveness and pervasiveness of today's economic-financial systems, we could be tempted to abandon ourselves to cynicism, and to think that with our poor forces we can do very little. In reality, every one of us can do so much, especially if one does not remain alone."

NAFTA/Trade Medicine Access, Interfaith Statement

By Lydia Andrews 

The below statement was sent to President Trump, Members of Congress and Administration officials on May 18^th, 2018. 

NAFTA and International Public Health: An Interfaith Call for Access to Medicines 

Recognizing the inherent dignity of the human person, our faith traditions call us to care for the sick and respond to the needs of the poor in our societies. Trade agreements can have enormous impacts on the ability of the sick and the poor to access the medicines they need for healing and even survival.

Therefore, we agree with the provisions of the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), currently in effect in all NAFTA countries. The TRIPS agreement calls for respect of intellectual property rights, including those for medicines. Crucially, as was underscored by the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health, it also recognizes each nation’s right to take necessary steps to ensure that medicines are available to all of their residents. 

We would also like to take this opportunity to commend the Administration’s defense of sovereignty on the issue of investor-state arbitration; each state has not only the right but the obligation to safeguard the common good within their nations.

At this time, we recall the Bipartisan Agreement on Trade Policy espoused by President George W. Bush and leaders of both parties in Congress in May 2007. This “May 10^th Agreement” recognizes the flexibility in intellectual property rights provisions with regard to pharmaceuticals that developing countries sometimes need in order to serve the public health needs of their people. We hope our political leaders can come together once again on these principles in support of the most vulnerable.

We call on you to ensure that no terms of a renegotiated NAFTA go beyond the TRIPS agreement mandates, and avoid enhanced and extended monopolies on life-essential medicines. Instead, we ask that a renegotiated NAFTA reaffirm the TRIPS public health protections that enable the United States and other countries to promote the human right to health and access to medicines for all.

Most Reverend Timothy P. Broglio
Chairman of the Committee on International Justice and Peace, The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

Most Reverend Michael B. Curry
Presiding Bishop and Primate, The Episcopal Church

Reverend Dr. Susan Henry-Crowe
General Secretary of the General Board of Church and Society, The United Methodist Church

Reverend Dr. John C. Dorhauer
General Minister and President, The United Church of Christ

Reverend Elizabeth A. Eaton
Presiding Bishop, The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Reverend Dr. J. Herbert Nelson
Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Eric LeCompte
Executive Director, Jubilee USA Network

Vatican Urges Transparency to Address Inequality and Prevent Financial Crisis

By Lydia Andrews 

The Vatican released an official assessment on global economics entitled, "‘Oeconomicae et pecuniariae quaestiones" or "Considerations for an ethical discernment regarding some aspects of the present economic-financial system." The document calls for improvements in global finance policies on debt resolution, taxation, financial crisis prevention and transparency. 

"The recent financial crisis might have provided the occasion to develop a new economy, more attentive to ethical principles, and a new regulation of financial activities that would neutralise predatory and speculative tendencies and acknowledge the value of the actual economy," reads the Vatican statement. "Although there have been many positive efforts at various levels which should be recognized and appreciated, there does not seem to be any inclination to rethink the obsolete criteria that continue to govern the world. On the contrary, the response seems at times like a return to the heights of myopic egoism, limited by an inadequate framework that, excluding the common good, also excludes from its horizons the concern to create and spread wealth, and to eliminate the inequality so pronounced today,' continues the Vatican assessment.

"The Catholic Church offers a profound analysis of what we need to prevent the next financial crisis and promote greater inclusion in our economic system," noted Jubilee USA Executive Director Eric LeCompte. LeCompte advises religious and Catholic Church leaders on the impacts of financial policies on vulnerable populations. "Debt, tax and trade policies are at the center of this debate and the Vatican is noting we need greater transparency in our economy."

The Vatican takes on a number of financial issues in their 15-page release including tax havens, debt relief, interest rates and risky market behavior. The document was authored jointly by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

"This document is significant because it carries the full weight of Catholic teaching that asserts that a financial system must serve all human beings, not just the interests of a few," stated LeCompte who serves on United Nation finance expert groups. "The Vatican is seeking to influence policies that can address inequality."

Read "‘Oeconomicae et pecuniariae quaestiones," or  in English, "Considerations for an ethical discernment regarding some aspects of the present economic-financial system" via this link.