Faith and Works Reach Around the World
ACC continues to support the work of Jubilee USA, a multi-faith advocacy organization with offices in DC. The ACC Mission and Social Justice Board just signed on to a petition Jubilee USA is sending to the IMF letter to the IMF, G20 and White House. A decision on Jubilee’s campaigns to cancel 2020 debt payments for developing countries can be made as soon as Monday - April 13th. The G20 and IMF are working through Passover and Easter weekend.
More than $25 billion dollars is on the line for the poorest countries if the G20 stops collecting debt. "Middle Income" developing countries in Africa could immediately access more than $44 billion if they stop paying debt. This is urgently needed as the average African country only has 50 critical coronavirus care beds per country.
Below is an excerpt from a news article on the website. To learn more, go to jubileeusa.org
Religious Development Group Proposes Solutions for Pandemic Economic Impacts
Washington, DC - The leadership of a religious development group wrote the head of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, to help stop negative economic consequences of the Covid-19 virus.
“Economic forecasts warn that a possible financial crisis or depression, spurred by the coronavirus, could be worse than the 2008 financial crisis,” warned the letter sent on Monday to the IMF from Jubilee USA's executive officers, Celeste Drake, Reverend Steve Herder, Rabbi Matthew Cutler, Reverend Aniedi Okure and Eric LeCompte. “Nearly 100 million people, mostly women and children, were pushed into extreme poverty and 22 million jobs were lost worldwide in the 2008 crisis.”
The letter urges expanded debt relief and aid to bolster health-care for developing countries impacted by the coronavirus. Additional letter recommendations include debt payment moratoriums, improved debt restructuring, encouraging public budget approval processes for countries and raising revenue by curbing corruption, tax evasion and tax avoidance.
One of the specific solutions advocated in the letter was expanding an IMF process which delivered health-care aid through debt relief and a grant-like process during the 2014 Ebola epidemic that devastated Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. Jubilee USA worked with the IMF, G20, US Treasury and the White House to establish this process, the Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust.