Debt cancellation for 70 countries now!

JDC Blog Sunday 24th labour Conference


Sunday, the day after the big event, the slog of the Alternative Conference and the Gordon Brown oratory to look forward to.

I had at least hoped the Alternative Conference would attract a big crowd of potential targets to leaflet for either the Palestine Fringe meeting on Tuesday or the WDM Water for Life film show on Wednesday. The main speakers at the first session were the usual suspects led by George Galloway, but most of those going in were leaving and wouldn’t be in Manchester for the fringe events.

Wahu was on the panel for the Globalisation, Trade and Debt workshop. David Hillman covered Tobin Tax, or mainly the sheer scale of financial transactions that are neither taxed nor beneficial to the poor. I did learn that France and Venezuela have agreed to introduce an airline tax to fund international development. That’s been the French alternative to Gordon’s IFF initiative and David Hillman saw it as a step towards an international Tobin tax.

The one area of consensus across the panel was the importance and significance of the World Social Forum as a vehicle for developing new ideas and social models. The next WSF is going to be in Wahu’s hometown of Nairobi. The first WSF to be held in Africa and perceived as a beacon of hope for a new world order.

The ‘main event’ today, at least from a debt perspective was the Gordon Brown session organised by Oxfam and Unison carrying the title of Millennium Development Goals and Public Services. I was looking forward to this as a self confessed Brown supporter on poverty issues. He was the first politician I ever heard, back at the closing session of J2K who I felt actually believed in what he was saying on poverty. But it’s more than that. I’ve grown to recognise and respect his tactics. So much of politics is calls for grand solutions and unachievable goals. Politics is the art of the possible. Ask the world to jump a big hurdle and they agree but do nothing. Take it in six steps and although it takes longer, progress is made. On debt, there was HIPC and HIPC II, and then the step of UK cancelling bilateral debt, then the step of putting repayments from conflict countries into a trust fund, then 100% for 20 countries. Now even signs of pressure on conditionalities. Compare that to the rhetoric on the Doha round, an all-encompassing negotiation, which has got nowhere.

So it was his usual hectoring style, full of idealisms. It was, given its sponsors, mainly about delivering free education and healthcare from public services and how, when countries bring their plans forward, the resources will be found (examples from GAVI on vaccinations and the IFF initiative). He spanned history from the birth of Trades Unions in Manchester and the abolition of slavery to show that the power was with the people and how we must continue after MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY. A speech of a grand vision for a better world and importantly some achievable steps along the way.

I was listening intently for a commitment on debt. Last year up here in Manchester his speech called for 62 countries to get debt cancellation, but it wasn’t in the printed text or web site. I tried to get a recording but in the end never did. So I wanted to know what he might say this time. 70 countries! At least the 62 seemed to relate to LDCs, I’m not sure how the 70 is derived. He said that Britain would lead the way on cancelling their debt burden (that’s not verbatim, I can’t remember the precise words). But the point for me is a repeated willingness to break the current focus on just the HIPC 42 countries.

I know I’m being contentious and off message but I’m going to be ‘campaigning’ internally for JDC to pick up the challenge and campaign for debt cancellation to be much wider. I want to get the data together like J2K did and justify debt cancellation on the basis of funding the MDGs.

As a side issue, financing the MDGs was supposed to be primarily driven by trade through a new Development round. We all know that’s fallen through or if agreed it offers so little it’s no benefit (at best) to LDCs. So if trade isn’t going to finance the MDGs we should be working on even more debt cancellation, at least that’s a route we know and have made progress along.

So much for high politics, lets end with a grin; the best thing that happened all day. The Gordon Brown event was pre-registered for security clearance. One eminent local campaigner wasn’t allowed in. Apparently my reservation from weeks ago hadn’t happened but was sorted out on Friday. Well another of our leading Manchester campaigners, a real gentleman and a veteran campaigner, who registered weeks ago with me, was also not on the list. We begged for entry but it was denied. As we sat together I realised that there didn’t seem to be any checks on those going in the hall itself, so I went in without being checked, came out and walked back in with Edward. Tight security! Van loads of police outside!

Sorry these are getting longer and longer!