[Qui-deu-a-qui] [Fwd: URGENT Need your comments and help re G8 Summit Sign on statement]

[Iolanda Fresnillo - ODG]

Hola

Nos envían desde Jubileo Sur el comunicado sobre el próximo g8, que se 
reuniran en breve en Japón (del 7 al 9 de julio) trantando los temas de 
precio de petroleo, cambio climatico y crisis alimentaria.

Os lo envio sin tiempo de repasarlo antes, por lo que no sé si podemos 
firmar como QdQ.

En cualquier caso *nos piden ayuda con la traducción al español ... 
algun/a voluntario/aria?*

Besos

Iolanda

---------------------------------------------------------- 

** 

*Challenge to the G8*

* *

* *

The gathering of the richest and most powerful countries of the world is 
an occasion for the people of the world to demand that this G8 Summit 
address the twin 'tsunamis' that plague humanity today – the food and 
climate crisis – and the continuing problem of debt that has contributed 
significantly to these two crises and exacerbate their impacts.

 

*/The Food crisis/*

 

The high price of oil, worsening climate conditions and price 
manipulation by domestic and international trading cartels have 
certainly contributed significantly to the abrupt, massive increase in 
the prices of food.  However, the food crisis can be also be traced to 
economic policies that have been imposed on the countries of the South 
for decades, with the use of debt, access to credit and debt relief as 
instruments for coercion.

 

The combination of several policies that were part of conditionality 
packages of the IMF and World Bank led to falling productivity in basic 
food agricultures and heavy reliance on imported fertilizers and 
pesticides, consequently resulting in higher costs and less sustainable 
production of food. For example, there has been a massive shift to 
non-staple and non-food export crops and a drastic conversion of prime 
agricultural lands for non-agricultural uses, such as the building of 
export processing zones. These policy conditionalities included the 
removal of state subsidies for production of basic food crops, the 
stress on export-oriented high growth development strategies, the 
privatization of services and infrastructures, the liberalization of 
trade which gave rise to   unfair competition from subsidized food 
products from the north, and the liberalization of finance capital flows 
that fed speculative industries including real estate.

 

In addition, the effects of huge debt payment on government resources 
include the deterioration and neglect of many public infrastructures 
needed to boost agricultural production, such as irrigation systems, and 
farm to market roads.

 

The ability of many countries of the South, from Asia to Africa to Latin 
America and the Caribbean, to produce sufficiently for their own food 
needs and keep prices accessible to the domestic market have thus been 
steadily and dramatically eroding since the 1980's.  This is indicated 
by the increase of net food importing countries from the South in the 
past two decades, the diminishing capability of many countries to 
maintain adequate buffer stocks of staple grains, and the increasing 
vulnerability to world food market supply and price dynamics. 

 

The mantra of the international financial institutions pushing these 
policies was—"food security is not about producing what you need but the 
ability to buy what you need."  This argument is ridiculous in 
situations where per capita income is far removed from the actual income 
of the majority and the withdrawal of state intervention and regulation 
in food distribution (another policy conditionality accompanying loans 
and debt relief) virtually means hunger and malnutrition for this 
majority.  Such argument is rendered even more ridiculous in the face of 
fast dwindling global buffer stocks of rice and of other staple grains 
needed by billions of people in the South, stocks which could be nearly 
wiped out by extreme weather in the next harvest seasons.   What do you 
do with your money if there is not enough rice and grains to go around 
and last till the next harvest?  For peoples and countries of the South 
assert – without food sovereignty there is no real food security.

 

Many point out that the food crisis is less about supply but more about 
access. They argue that there is enough food being produced globally to 
feed everyone. This may be true, setting aside food culture and norms 
and notwithstanding supply problems for specific staples.  It needs to 
be raised yet again that the burden of debt and related conditionalities 
impact greatly on the question of access.

 

A tragic irony of the spiraling increase of food prices is that small 
farmers and landless peasants have had no real benefits as farm gate 
prices continue to be low and less than enough to support their 
families. And as consumers themselves, they share in the greater 
suffering caused by the food crises.

 

The G8 governments bear primary responsibility for the debt burden and 
the debt-related policy conditionalities that contributed to the current 
food crisis and magnify its impacts. They are, after all, the biggest 
bilateral lenders and the most influential members of international 
financial institutions. They also bear responsibility for other factors 
to the food crisis -- as governments of countries which are home to most 
of the biggest multinational food corporations and food commodities 
market traders, as powerful governments which shape bilateral and 
multilateral trade agreements affecting food production, food prices and 
food distribution.

 

*/The Climate Crisis/*

 

The G8 governments also bear primary responsibility for the climate 
crisis.  Half of the world's green house gas emissions come from the G8 
countries. Most, if not all, of the G8 countries are lagging behind the 
reduction targets of GHG emissions. Even the European Union, which 
considers itself a world leader in addressing climate change through its 
bold plan of being the first de-carbonized economy in the world, has 
undermined its own claims by planning to build 40 major new coal power 
plants in the next five years.

 

 And again, as the most powerful members of international financial 
institutions, they are accountable for debt-related projects and 
policies that exacerbate the climate crisis.

 

The World Bank and the regional development banks are major lenders to 
projects involving fossil fuel industries, paid for by peoples of the 
South. The Export Credit Agencies of G8 countries also provide financing 
to these industries, part of which translates to liabilities of Southern 
governments, again paid for by peoples of the South.

 

Since the Earth Summit and the signing of the Climate Convention in 
1992, and even after instituting "environmental policies," the World 
Bank has approved more than 133 financial packages to oil, coal and gas 
extraction projects, comprising mainly of loans but also including 
equity investments, guarantees and some grants. The total amount exceeds 
US$28 billion dollars. Fossil fuel corporations based in G8 countries 
benefit from almost every project finance package.

In 2006, more than 70% of the World Bank's total energy program was for 
oil, gas, and power commitments with "new renewables" such as wind, 
solar, and mini-hydro comprising on 6%.   The International Finance 
Corporation of the World Bank (which lends to the private sector) is 
increasing its fossil fuel lending portfolio.

 

The Asian Development Bank, to which Japan and the United States are the 
biggest shareholders, is a major lender to coal, oil and gas projects in 
Asia, approving close to US$2 billion worth of loan packages since the 
year 2000.

 

Other loan-financed projects and policy conditionalities of 
international financial institutions have led to massive deforestation, 
another major factor to climate change. These include, for instance, the 
building of large-scale dams, road development in tropical forests, and 
the promotion of palm oil production for export.  

 

It is indeed ironic and deplorable that with such a record, the G8 
governments is granting the World Bank a pre-eminent role in global 
financing of climate mitigation and adaptation and the promotion of 
"clean technology" and "clean development."  In the July 2005 Summit, 
the G8 declared that the /"The World Bank will take a leadership role in 
creating a new framework for clean energy and development, including 
investment and financing."/  The regional development banks are also 
claiming a similar or supporting role within their sphere of operations.

 

The World Bank announced very recently that it will be establishing 
Climate Investment Funds (CIFs) including the Clean Technology Fund. 
Aside from the obvious inappropriateness of the World Bank managing 
these Funds given its record and continuing role in worsening the 
climate crisis, the concepts, design and intentions of the funds are 
seriously flawed. For instance the definition of "clean technology" is 
so ambiguous as to include coal plants which are being justified as 
"less dirty" and necessary for "poverty reduction".

 

The G8 governments are not only promoting false solutions through the 
different facilities under the auspices of these international financial 
institutions, they are intending to finance these through loans, thus 
adding to the debt burden of developing countries. The UK government has 
been leading the call for other governments to contribute to funds to be 
administered by the World Bank as loans.

 

Instead of asking for repayment of financing for climate mitigation and 
adaptation or treating this financing as "assistance" – the G8 
governments should begin with the recognition of the huge ecological 
debt that they owe the countries and peoples of the South. They should 
bear the responsibility for the financing of climate mitigation and 
adaption in the South as part of the restitution and reparations for the 
environmental damage and destruction their policies and programs, their 
economies and corporations have caused. The funds should be managed by 
democratic and accountable institutions.

 

*/The Injustice of the Debt Burden and the problem of Illegitimate Debts/*

*/ /*

The payment of huge amounts of debt service amplifies the effects of the 
food and climate crises and hampers the ability of countries and peoples 
of the South to deal with these crises.   This is part of the injustice 
of the debt and for this alone debt cancellation is urgent. 

 

But the debt is more than just the implications of losing much needed 
resources to debt payments. Debts which have not benefited the people in 
whose name they were incurred, debts which were used for harmful 
projects or to impose harmful conditionalities such as those which 
contributed to the food and climate crises -- these are illegitimate 
debts and should not be paid.

 

Addressing the debt burden and illegitimate debt is a major step towards 
immediate as well as long term solutions to the food and climate crises. 

 

*/Calls and Demands/*

 

We urge all people's organizations and movements (labor, farmers, women, 
youth and indigenous peoples), faith-based organizations, social and 
political movements and all concerned citizens to challenge the 
governments of the G8 countries to acknowledge their responsibility for 
the food and climate crises and the continuing problem of debt, and take 
decisive action to:

 

   1. Cancel all illegitimate debt
   2. Stop financing projects and policies that contribute to climate change
   3. Reverse policies that have led to the food crisis
   4. End the practice of using loans and debt cancellation to impose
      conditionalities
   5. Pay restitution and reparations for the huge ecological debts owed
      to the South.

 

 


-- 

**********************************
Iolanda Fresnillo i Sallan
Observatori del Deute en la Globalització
www.odg.cat
iolanda.fresnilloaodg.cat
+93 785 13 18
Skype Id: ifresnillo

Atenció! Els correus electrònics de l'ODG ara acaben en @odg.cat (enlloc de debtwatch.org)
Atención! Los correos electrónicos del ODG ahora acaban en @odg.cat (en lugar de debtwatch.org)
Attention! ODG e-mail addresses now finish in @odg.cat (instead of debtwatch.org)

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