Urge Your Rep.: Cancel Haiti’s Debt!

Thank you Jubilee supporters for calling your members of Congress on July 25th to urge them to support a House resolution that would immediately cancel Haiti’s debt. Your efforts generated 16 new co-sponsors to H.Res. 888!

The Haiti debt cancellation resolution (H.Res. 888) urges the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and other international financial institutions to completely cancel Haiti’s debt without delays!

In April, Haiti was added to the World Bank and IMF’s list of heavily indebted poor countries (HIPC) eligible for debt cancellation, just after new president Rene Preval was elected in February. But under the harmful economic conditions of the World Bank and IMF’s debt relief program, Haiti will not see this relief until December 2009 at the earliest—by which time the country will have paid $220 million in debt service that could have gone towards education, health care, or other social sector spending.

The existing program also excludes cancellation of Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) debt which accounts for $470 million, nearly half the country’s debt to international financial institutions. H.Res. 888, which was introduced June 22nd by Representative Maxine Waters along with Mark Foley, Barney Frank, Spencer Bachus, and Barbara Lee, among others, will urge the World Bank, IMF, and IDB to immediately cancel Haiti’s debt.

Haiti’s debt is both unpayable and unjust. 45 percent of the country’s $1.4 billion debt was accrued under the Duvalier family dictatorship and used to finance the Duvalier’s lavish lifestyle and support their 29-year rule, notorious for human rights abuses. The Haitian people continue to pay interest on these loans of a clearly odious nature. This is money that could be used to invest in health care or education in a country where 23 percent of children under five are chronically malnourished and only 35% of students are able to complete primary school.

From 2005 to 2009, Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, is projected to pay $220 million in debt service. To put this number in perspective, this is more than double the amount Haiti spent in FY2001 on education, health, roads, the environment, and water and urban infrastructure combined. Immediate cancellation of Haiti’s debt would allow the country to stop paying interest on odious debts and free up much needed resources for the country to invest in health and education.

Contact Your Representative if You Haven't Already!
You can help Haiti achieve immediate debt cancellation without delays or strings attached by calling your representative and asking them to co-sponsor the Haiti debt cancellation resolution in the House (H.Res. 888). To co-sponsor the resolution, the Member’s staff should call Kathleen Sengstock in Representative Maxine Waters’ office at (202) 225-2201 – Representative Waters helped introduce this resolution to Congress. If your Representative has already co-sponsored the resolution, please call to thank them. To find contact information for your representative, visit http://www.house.gov/writerep.

Find out whether your Representative has co-sponsored this resolution.