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African Social Forum Debt Workshop - 6,7 January 2003
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1. Debt Analysis
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The workshop endorsed the analysis of debt and the call for unconditional cancellation and reparations developed in Bamako (Mali), last year.
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The illegitimacy of debt:
The general consensus is that the external debt of Third World countries is odious, illegitimate and immoral. The illegitimacy of debt is based on its historical roots and its structural causes. It is also based on its use by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and G8 countries as an instrument to perpetuate their control and domination of the economies and countries of the South. The debt is a tool they are not prepared to relinquish.
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The racist dimension of debt:
In addition, several participants spoke to the racist dimension of debt. Its impact on the people of Africa and the South more generally is of such a devastating nature that every day an estimated 19. 000 children die of preventable diseases. This is a direct a consequence of the the deterioration of the health systems for lack of public investments crowded out by debt service. A catastrophe of such proportions would never be tolerated in Europe or North America, but the lives of people in Africa and the South are clearly considered to be less important than those in the North.
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The Gender dimension of debt:
The debt burden has particularly harsh consequences for women. Debt repayments and the implementation of conditionalities attached to loans have a severe impact on the provision of government services so desperately needed by women and their households. In addition, structural adjustment programs have destroyed the African agricultural sector, with a devastating impact on women, who are the majority of African farmers. This has led to what many call the "feminization of poverty" in Africa.
Women suffer not only from national debt, but also from individual and household debt. Microcredit models imposed by financial and other institutions from the North have had significant impacts on women in the South. They have contributed to the collapse of traditional forms of credit, entailed the handing over of personal possessions as collateral for credit and resulted in women and their households becoming increasingly trapped in a vicious circle of indebtedness and poverty.
Given the severe impact of the debt on women, it was agreed that much more work needs to be done to integrate gender into our alternatives and strategies.
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HIPC and PRSPs:
The workshop reiterated the decision taken in Bamako to reject the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) in that they represent a perpetuation of indebtedness and structural adjustment. The HIPC Initiative has already failed, despite claims to the contrary by the IMF and the World Bank. As for PRSPs, they are the disatrous SAPs under a new name.
There were two significant additions made with regard to PRSPs. First, the promise of some "debt relief" on the completion of PRSPs is being used as a further tool of control in that the "debt relief" is made contingent on countries agreeing to additional conditions.
Secondly, despite the rejection of PRSPs by Jubilee South, the African Social Forum and other social movements in the South, many Northern donors and NGOs have continued to make funding available to organizations in the South on condition that they use these funds to participate in PRSPs. The workshop resolved to inform Northern donors and NGOs of the decision to reject PRSPs and to encourage them to respect this decision.
Moreover, it was stressed that the solutions to the African debt crisis are to be developed in Africa and that donors should support efforts in this regard.
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