Foreign Aid / Debt Forgiveness | ||
ResolutionBe it resolved that the foreign debt of nations of the South be forgiven and that foreign aid be increased to 1% of the GNP of donor nations.At the Earth Summit in 1992, donors committed themselves to making progress towards the UN target of 0.7 per cent of GNP allocated to aid. Since then, overall aid has fallen to its lowest-ever level - falling to 0.22 per cent of donor GNP in 1997. This was a third lower than in 1990. The world's poorest regions, with the biggest deficits in basic education, have not been protected from the fall in aid. Particularly alarming in this context has been a $3.7 billion reduction in aid to sub-Saharan Africa since 1994. At the same time, foreign debt is crippling these countries. More money is flowing back into the north from developing countries than what they are receiving in aid.Since independence, the economic relations between most African countries and their former colonial powers have hardly changed at all. Coming to independence with little or no industry, the only source of foreign income for these former colonies was continued export of raw resources and borrowing. Borrowing at extremely high interest rates for massive "development" projects (largely determined by the north) has led to the serious debt situation that is crippling so many of these struggling nations today.The "structural adjustment" policies laid down by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank as conditions for obtaining help has had a devastating effect on the already suffering economies of virtually all countries forced to borrow money from these organizations. Whilst no one would argue with the fact that there is/was a real need for some kind of economic and, indeed, political restructuring in many of these struggling nations, the conditions imposed by the IMF and World Bank clearly worsened an already serious condition. Countries receiving Structural Adjustment Loans (SALs) are forced to concentrate on increasing their exports so as to increase their income of ‘hard’ currency, needed for servicing their debts. For the majority of countries, particularly those on the African continent, this means increasing their production and exports of cash crops and raw materials for use in ‘developed’ countries’ industries. This means that growing food for the people in poor nations has been sacrificed to pay foreign debts. In addition the governments of these countries have been forced to cut back and even eliminate funding for social programs such as basic health and education.
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Print ResourcesWorld Prospects - p 312 - 323 Articles from the Teacher | ||
Online Resources"Debt
Crisis Worse than Crazy"
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Media ResourcesThe First Harvest (video) The Nepal Project (video) CIDA in Togo (video) Vietnam: Impact of Aid (video) |