[Qui-deu-a-qui] Sobre los acuerdos de deuda del G8

[Iolanda Fresnillo]

Hola a todos

Os envio (aunque en inglés) dos informes (y sus resumenes) sobre el 
estado del "cumplimiento" de las medidas prometidas por el G8 en 2005 
(Gleanegles) respecto a cancelaciones de deuda multilateral e incremento 
de la ayuda, en especial a África. Son informes de Eurodad y Oxfam, que 
nos pueden servir para obtener cifras interesantes de cara a nuestra 
convocatoria para las acciones contra el G8. Supongo que el equipo que 
se generó en Asturies está trabajando en esa convocatoria, verdad?

Iolanda

*Multilateral debt: one step forward, how many back?*

Eurodad scrutinises the G8 debt deal 2 years-on

At the 2005 G8 Summit in Gleneagles, G8 leaders pledged to cancel US$ 40bn
in debts owed by some of the world's poorest and most heavily indebted
nations. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair declared that the 2005 G8 Summit would
become known as the "100% Summit". Almost 2 years later, how far has this
promise been kept? Eurodad has uncovered some surprising facts in a new
report.

How much debt did the G8 really cancel in Gleneagles?

Eurodad's latest report on the G8 debt deal (renamed the Multilateral Debt
Relief Initiative or MDRI) reveals that 22 Sub-Saharan African and Latin
American countries have seen their debts cut from US$ 34.7bn to US$ 15.4bn
in net present value terms thanks to the debt cancellation deal.

For the 18 Sub-Saharan African countries included in the deal, IMF, World
Bank and African Development Bank debts will be slashed by 64.4% on average,
not 100% as claimed by the G8 in 2005.

In 2007, beneficiary countries will save US$ 1.25bn in debt service
payments. But in the same year, they will still reimburse a total of US$
1.43bn in debt service to the IMF, World Bank, and African Development Bank.
How many countries got debt cancellation?

A total of 22 Sub-Saharan African and Latin American countries have so far
benefited from debt cancellation under the G8 multilateral debt deal. A
further 9 heavily indebted poor countries could also benefit over the next
couple of years because they have started obligatory IMF and World Bank
sponsored reform programmes. A maximum of 42 countries could eventually
receive debt cancellation provided they begin (and follow) stringent
economic reform programmes.
 
The country list was always arbitrary and left many other severely indebted
and poor countries squarely excluded. These include Kenya, Lesotho, Ecuador,
Peru, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines and Bangladesh, to name just a
few. Comprehensive debt cancellation for these excluded countries remains --
at least for the moment -- as elusive as ever despite research which shows
that all will have to dramatically scale-up poverty-related expenditures if
they are to reach the MDGs.

Which creditors are in and which are left out?

The Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative covered 3 multilateral creditors
only: the IMF, World Bank and African Development Bank. This is out of a
total of 23 multilateral creditors which participate in the HIPC Initiative.
Only one more multilateral creditor has come on board. In March 2007, the
Inter-American Development Bank agreed to cancel US$4.4bn owed by Bolivia,
Guyana, Haiti, Honduras and Nicaragua. But Eurodad shows how this debt
cancellation will be offset by sharp reductions in new funds from the
institution and by charging these countries higher interest rates on future
loans.

The European Commission reports that it has cancelled EUR446mn in for 25
heavily indebted poor countries but is still claiming almost EUR506mn more
from them.

The devil is in the detail

Debt cancellation is important because it means that money which governments
would have used to service their debts can now be spent on meeting the
essential needs of their people. Eurodad lists the promises poor country
governments have made to spend debt service savings on pro-poor expenditures
and basic infrastructure.

Ghana has pledged to spend MDRI-resources on energy, water and the
rehabilitation of essential major highways and feeder roads in the main
agricultural areas. Honduras has pledged to eliminate fees for public
schools.

But Eurodad also highlights the devil in the detail. The G8 multilateral
debt deal does not mean as much extra money in the budgets of poor countries
as was initially hoped since these debt service reductions are offset by an
equivalent reduction in future loans from the World Bank and African
Development Bank. Countries then have to "win-back" future concessional
finance from the Bank based on "good" policy performance. This means that
the MDRI has provided less additional money for countries to spend on
poverty reduction than may have been suggested by official announcements.

Are donors stumping up the cash?

In 2005, donors pledged to reimburse the World Bank and African Development
Bank for the funds they would lose through this debt write-off. Eurodad
reveals that for the World Bank, donors have provided promises totalling
US$5bn out of the US$7bn the Bank is cancelling between 2006 and 2015. In
most cases, these promises are not guaranteed and may not materialise
because governments still have to request the money through national
legislative processes or because they are questioning whether the World Bank
is in fact the right institution through which to channel their development
finance.

Specific country problems

In February 2007, the Kyrgyz Republic announced that it would not join the
HIPC Initiative. It was rejecting debt cancellation. Why? The parliament and
citizens in the country did not want to be straight-jacketed and told what
to do by the IMF and World Bank.

Eurodad also shows that despite international praise for the government of
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, donors have still not cancelled Liberia's debt.
Instead they want Liberia to settle US$1.47bn in arrears with the IMF and
World Bank first.

What next on the agenda?

Post G8 debt deal, creditors are panicking that developing countries will
reaccumulate debt all over again. Out of US$1.1bn Guyana has so far received
in debt cancellation, it has taken out new loans of US$900mn. Eurodad argues
that if we are to avoid an MDRI II scenario 10 years down the line,
creditors must acknowledge shared responsibility for the debt crisis. 

Under the G8 debt deal, debts are "forgiven" by creditors without any
reflection on creditors' behaviour in the past. Eurodad calls for debtors
and creditors to come together to establish "responsible lending and
borrowing frameworks" and fair and predictable work-out procedures where
debt problems do arise.

Full report: http://www.eurodad.org/whatsnew/reports.aspx?id=1234 

http://www.eurodad.org/debt/report.aspx?id=112&item=01234 <http://www.eurodad.org/debt/report.aspx?id=112&item=01234>

Multilateral debt: one step forward, how many back? 
<http://www.eurodad.org/uploadedFiles/Whats_New/Reports/Microsoft_Word__Eurodad_MDRI_Update_April07_FINAL.pdf> 
: 
http://www.eurodad.org/uploadedFiles/Whats_New/Reports/Microsoft_Word__Eurodad_MDRI_Update_April07_FINAL.pdf 


G8 debt deal up close: key top-line information 
<http://www.eurodad.org/uploadedFiles/Whats_New/Reports/Top_line_messages_MDRI_May_07.pdf>  
http://www.eurodad.org/uploadedFiles/Whats_New/Reports/Top_line_messages_MDRI_May_07.pdf


  G8 Debt Deal One Year On: What Happened and What Next?

One year after the Gleneagles G8 Summit and what has been delivered on 
debt? And what remains on the books? Eurodad looks in-depth at the G8 
debt cancellation deal now renamed the Multilateral Debt Relief 
Initiative (MDRI). The report notes that on 1 July 2006, the World Bank 
and African Development Bank will start to deliver debt cancellation to 
19 impoverished nations, 15 of which are in Sub-Saharan Africa. This is 
one full year following final announcement of the plan, during which 
time these countries have continued to make debt service repayments to 
these institutions. The IMF delivered its share (US$3.3bn) of the debt 
cancellation six months earlier: on 6 January 2006. Two further 
countries also benefited from IMF debt cancellation: Cambodia and 
Tajikistan. The debt deal means that each year, over the next ten years, 
these 19 countries will save around US$1.1bn in debt service repayments: 
money that can be used instead to invest in health, education and 
infrastructure. But did campaigners feel this deal really went far 
enough? Did the deal cover 100% of countries and 100% of debts?

The paper reports that even though campaigners considered the deal 
presented by G8 Finance Ministers was far too limited (it covered 
neither 100% of countries nor 100% of debts), the rest of 2005 still saw 
rich country governments and the World Bank squabble over the details. 
These disputes threatened to seriously derail and delay implementation 
of the deal. They finally resulted in the temporary exclusion of 
Mauritania from the deal and a limitation of the World Bank debts 
covered by the plan. In cash terms, this means that US$5bn of World Bank 
debt will be left on the books of beneficiary countries. NO country will 
receive the claimed full 100% debt cancellation.

In Africa, the picture is mixed: in percentage terms, Uganda will have 
the largest proportion of its debt cancelled with 79%. This is followed 
by Ghana at 76%, and Tanzania and Zambia (both at 74%). The two 
Sub-Saharan African countries which will see the least reduction in 
percentage terms are Mali with a 56% reduction and Mozambique with a 48% 
reduction, principally because these two countries owe money to 
creditors other than the IMF, World Bank and African Development Bank. 
In Latin America, the picture is even gloomier. On average, the 4 Latin 
American HIPCs will see less than one-third of their debts written-off 
thanks to the exclusion of the Inter-American Development Bank, one of 
Latin America's most important creditors. Guyana languishes at the 
bottom. It will see its debt reduced by only 21%, Nicaragua by only 23%, 
Honduras by 28% and Bolivia by 31%. In addition, the net financial gain 
from the MDRI for individual countries will depend on the quality of the 
country's policies and institutions as judged by the IFIs.

Where now for campaigners? The paper argues that though Governments may 
be tempted to argue that "debt is done" thanks to Gleneagles many more 
countries urgently need immediate debt cancellation. In total, 
low-income countries are indebted to the tune of US$380bn and 
middle-income countries to the tune of US$1.66 trillion. Seen in this 
context, Gordon Brown's "historic breakthrough" of US$40bn seems a 
somewhat more modest achievement. However it is significant that thanks 
to campaigners' persistent pressure this cancellation will be delivered 
free of World Bank and IMF conditionalities. At completion point, 
countries will receive a letter from these institutions advising them 
that they no longer have to make debt service repayments on eligible 
loans. This means that governments can decide how and where to spend the 
cash they save (which in turn promotes downward accountability) and will 
not be subject to on-going monitoring of their policy performance from 
Washington DC in order to obtain this relief. The lack of on-going 
outside monitoring represents a remarkable departure from HIPC since one 
of the core foundations of the initiative is that countries must remain 
"on-track" with their IFI-sponsored reform programmes in order to 
benefit from debt relief. Another important precedent has been set with 
the inclusion of Cambodia and Tajikistan for IMF-only debt cancellation. 
If non-HIPCs can be included on the list for multilateral debt 
cancellation, then why not other countries in the future?

Despite these modest achievements it would be dangerous to underestimate 
how much still remains to be done on debt. Most importantly for many 
debt campaign groups in the Global South, remarkably absent from last 
year's jubilant announcement was any acknowledgement by creditors of the 
key role they have played in the accumulation of unsustainable and 
illegitimate debt burdens in the South. Governments in the North, as 
well as the international financial institutions they control, have in 
the past lent large amounts of cash to some of the world's most 
notorious and despised depots such as Mobutu in Zaire, Abacha in 
Nigeria, Marcos in the Philippines, Suharto in Indonesia and Hussein in 
Iraq. These loans were extended to these dictators out of geopolitical 
strategic concerns and with full knowledge of the nature of the regimes 
in place at the time. Yet it is successor governments and their peoples 
that are saddled with these "odious" debt burdens. So while taxpayers in 
the North may legitimately ask whether aid money and the cash freed-up 
via debt cancellation will be spent on the poor, it is equally 
legitimate for taxpayers in the South to ask why they should pay-out 
scarce public funds servicing loans from which they never benefited. 
Debt campaigners around the globe are united in calling for an urgent 
international focus on the critical issue of illegitimate debt. These 
debts must be cancelled and principles of creditor co-responsibility 
must be enshrined within the global financial architecture. Campaigners 
will continue to maintain that until both debtors and creditors have an 
equal say in the design of solutions aimed at preventing and solving 
sovereign debt crises, there can be no long-term resolution of the 
global debt crisis.

Full report:

G8 Debt Deal One Year On: What Happened and What Next? 
<http://www.eurodad.org/uploadedFiles/Whats_New/Reports/G8_debt_deal_one_year_on_final_version.pdf> 
: 
http://www.eurodad.org/uploadedFiles/Whats_New/Reports/G8_debt_deal_one_year_on_final_version.pdf 


  _____  


*The World is Still Waiting. Broken G8 promises are costing millions of lives*
Oxfam International Briefing Paper

As the 2007 German G8 summit approaches, the demands of the millions of
anti-poverty campaigners worldwide are clear. G8 leaders must increase and
improve aid to provide health, education, water and sanitation for all.

They must cancel more debt and deliver trade justice. They must take urgent
action to bring peace to the world's most troubled countries and to halt the
devastating impact of climate change. Where action has been taken by G8
countries, lives are being saved. Yet despite some areas of real progress,
in the past two years overall progress has fallen far short of promises.

The cost of this inaction is millions of lives lost due to poverty.  G8
countries must meet their promises to the world.
 
Full report:
<http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/issues/debt_aid/bp103_g8.htm>


-- 
Iolanda Fresnillo

**********************************
Observatori del Deute en la Globalització
http://www.observatorideute.org
iolanda.fresnillo en debtwatch.org
+34 93 785 13 18
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