Debt relief push falls short: NGOs

LONDON – Aid groups said yesterday a US-British push for other rich nations to cancel debt for some of the world’s poorest countries was a step in the right direction but fell far short of alleviating their poverty.

In Washington on Tuesday, US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair neared a deal on debt that could be finalised at the weekend, Blair’s spokesman said yesterday after their return to London. Jonathan Glennie, a spokesman in Britain for the international humanitarian group Christian Aid, believed the deal would benefit 14 out of the 48 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, even though almost all of them badly need relief.”While we welcome what is on offer, we think it should be expanded massively to cover all those countries that are in desperately need of this debt relief,” Glennie told AFP.He was unsure whether the 14 countries will benefit from cancellation of all their debt, as Washington and London claim, because they may still have to pay back debt owed to the International Monetary Fund.However, he added, it was “extremely good news” for those countries which qualified owing to their adherence to IMF and World Bank policies over the last three to six years.The countries which Christian Aid expects to benefit in Africa are Ghana, Mozambique, Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.In addition, Glennie said, there are four in Latin America: Bolivia, Guyana, Honduras and Nicaragua.MOZAMBIQUE In the case of Mozambique, which he visited recently, Glennie said: “They’re really hoping that they’re going to get millions more euros every year to spend on health and education.”Glennie also said Christian Aid often opposed IMF and World Bank economic policies on privatising industry and liberalising trade because they often did more harm than good, though he agreed with their demand for transparency.In Washington, the Jubilee USA Network urged the Bush and Blair governments to ensure their proposal includes all impoverished countries, and highlighted the urgency of including IMF debt cancellation in any deal on debt.Britain has been pushing to secure agreement on a new ‘Marshall Plan’ to Africa when it hosts the Group of Eight of leading industrial nations at a summit July 6-8 in Gleneagles, Scotland.Meanwhile, Kevin Watkins, director of the Human Development Report Office at the UN Development Programme, told BBC radio in London that “on debt, at least it sounds encouraging, it seems there has been some progress”.”It is also good news that more aid has been announced for Africa but all of this stops an awful long way short of where we need to be,” he said.Though fighting corruption should be high on the agenda, Watkins added: “We should not use corruption as an excuse for not doing things that need to be done.””In a sense we are at a crossroads, aren’t we? This is the moment at which the world has an opportunity to do something about what is probably the greatest moral challenge facing us at the start of the 21st century.”If we miss that opportunity I think it will mean that this generation of political leader will go down in history as a generation that failed in this most critical of all causes.”The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (Cafod) said the debt relief proposal “sounds promising, but it is still quite vague,” a spokeswoman said.As for the broader issue of development, Cafod said the Bush administration “committed money but not new money.It doesn’t represent additional resources for development at all.We’re asking for more.”Bush said the United States would provide some 674 million dollars in additional assistance to respond to humanitarian emergencies in Africa.He said 414 million dollars of this would be to provide immediate help to avert a looming famine crisis in the Horn of Africa.- Nampa-AFPJonathan Glennie, a spokesman in Britain for the international humanitarian group Christian Aid, believed the deal would benefit 14 out of the 48 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, even though almost all of them badly need relief.”While we welcome what is on offer, we think it should be expanded massively to cover all those countries that are in desperately need of this debt relief,” Glennie told AFP.He was unsure whether the 14 countries will benefit from cancellation of all their debt, as Washington and London claim, because they may still have to pay back debt owed to the International Monetary Fund.However, he added, it was “extremely good news” for those countries which qualified owing to their adherence to IMF and World Bank policies over the last three to six years.The countries which Christian Aid expects to benefit in Africa are Ghana, Mozambique, Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.In addition, Glennie said, there are four in Latin America: Bolivia, Guyana, Honduras and Nicaragua.MOZAMBIQUE In the case of Mozambique, which he visited recently, Glennie said: “They’re really hoping that they’re going to get millions more euros every year to spend on health and education.”Glennie also said Christian Aid often opposed IMF and World Bank economic policies on privatising industry and liberalising trade because they often did more harm than good, though he agreed with their demand for transparency.In Washington, the Jubilee USA Network urged the Bush and Blair governments to ensure their proposal includes all impoverished countries, and highlighted the urgency of including IMF debt cancellation in any deal on debt.Britain has been pushing to secure agreement on a new ‘Marshall Plan’ to Africa when it hosts the Group of Eight of leading industrial nations at a summit July 6-8 in Gleneagles, Scotland.Meanwhile, Kevin Watkins, director of the Human Development Report Office at the UN Development Programme, told BBC radio in London that “on debt, at least it sounds encouraging, it seems there has been some progress”.”It is also good news that more aid has been announced for Africa but all of this stops an awful long way short of where we need to be,” he said.Though fighting corruption should be high on the agenda, Watkins added: “We should not use corruption as an excuse for not doing things that need to be done.””In a sense we are at a crossroads, aren’t we? This is the moment at which the world has an opportunity to do something about what is probably the greatest moral challenge facing us at the start of the 21st century.”If we miss that opportunity I think it will mean that this generation of political leader will go down in history as a generation that failed in this most critical of all causes.”The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (Cafod) said the debt relief proposal “sounds promising, but it is still quite vague,” a spokeswoman said.As for the broader issue of development, Cafod said the Bush administration “committed money but not new money.It doesn’t represent additional resources for development at all.We’re asking for more.”Bush said the United States would provide some 674 million dollars in additional assistance to respond to humanitarian emergencies in Africa.He said 414 million dollars of this would be to provide immediate help to avert a looming famine crisis in the Horn of Africa.- Nampa-AFP