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“Addressing Unsustainable and Illegitimate Debt—Strategic Options for Civil Society”

The Honourable John Manley
Minister of Finance House of Commons
Ottawa, K1A 0A6

July 19, 2002

Dear Minister Manley,

Southern Africa is facing its worst food crisis in over a decade, with millions of people facing starvation. The UN World Food Programme has launched an emergency appeal for assistance, and Canada is responding promptly and generously.

As development, human rights, church and environmental organizations, our concern extends beyond the need for emergency aid. We are dismayed to see millions of dollars continue to be taken out of the region by creditors like the World Bank.

Money, money everywhere, but nary a drop to drink

Civil society in G7 countries charge finance ministers with saying little and doing even less to support the poor
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Talking G8: The Travelling Road Show

At the invitation of the Parkland Institute and the Alberta Council for Global Cooperation, the Halifax Initiative participated in education events in 10 cities in Alberta to discuss the upcoming G8 meeting in Kananaskis, in June 2002.
Pamphlet [ PDF file ] (1.5 Mb)

Open letter to the G7 finance ministers

When the G7 heads of government met in Halifax in June 1995, leaders made a commitment to a series of measures to reform the Bretton Woods Institutions. The G7 called for the provision of multi-lateral debt relief for the poorest countries, the promotion of environmentally sustainable development and the reduction of poverty.

Seven years later, these promises are unfulfilled. The crisis of legitimacy confronting the World Bank and the IMF at the 50th anniversary of their creation led to the G7 to take up the reform of the international financial institutions (IFIs) in Halifax. As the G7 finance ministers return to Halifax, this question of legitimacy continues to haunt the institutions.

Wealthy countries and the World Bank are forcing the privatization of public services and natural resources in Africa and elsewhere as a condition for development assistance. Impoverished countries are required to turn their public services and natural resources over to private owners. If they want the aid money, they have to sell off their oil, gas, mining, electricity, telecommunications, transportation and water companies. Investors say privitization brings efficiency; opponents say it hurts the poor.

A growing chorus of critics from around the world have increasingly questioned the efficacy of World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF)-promoted economic policy reforms. As a result, the two institutions renewed vows to fight poverty at their annual meetings in Prague 2000. Uganda is viewed as pivotal to the success of much-publicized efforts to reform the institutions and their policies. Over 41 countries are in the pipeline for the adoption of similar policies, but is Uganda a success?

Accra Declaration

(Adopted at end of Joint CODESRIA- TWN-AFRICA Conference on Africa's Development Challenges in the Millennium, Accra 23-26 April, 2002)