New Business Ethiopia Quotes Eric LeCompte on the Finance in Common Summit, noting the need for multilateral development banks can expand their approaches to tackling global crises. Read an excerpt below, and click here for the full article.

Global development banks to avail loans for crisis recovery

By NBE

The third yearly Finance in Common Summit takes place amidst a world economy facing multiple shocks and calls for increasing lending capacity for development banks. “What distinguishes this third Finance in Common from the two previous ones, is that now there are proposals to push development banks to do more,” said Eric LeCompte, Executive Director of the religious development group Jubilee USA Network. “Development banks play an important role in crises. With the pandemic, Ukraine war, inflation, food prices and climate challenges, we will demand more of them.”

Read here for more. 

Axios quotes Eric LeCompte in an article detailing the numerous political and economic crises Puerto Rico faces. Read an excerpt below, and click here for the full article.

Puerto Rico's intersecting crises

By Nathan Bomey

Driving the news: Puerto Rico's entire power grid — which has been in bankruptcy for the last half decade — went down after Hurricane Fiona ripped through on Sunday. It's another humanitarian crisis for an island that was supposed to be keeping the lights on by now.

• Only about 32% of Puerto Rico residents had power restored as of Thursday, while about 3 in 4 were still without clean water, according to Jubilee USA Network, an organization that has advocated for debt relief for Puerto Rico.
• "Even relatively minor storms can shut down the power grid on the island," Jubilee executive director Eric LeCompte tells Axios. And "the water supply is dependent in many parts of the island on the electrical grid."

Read more here.

Crux quotes Eric LeCompte on Puerto Rico's need for disaster recovery aid after being hit by Hurricane Fiona. Read an excerpt below, and click here for the full article.

Puerto Rico devastated after Hurricane Fiona hits

By John Lavenburg

Eric LeCompte, the executive director of Jubilee USA Network, told Crux in August that Puerto Rico needed an additional $50 billion in disaster recovery aid, and an acceleration of the disbursement of the $55 billion in disaster recovery aid that Congress has already allocated for recovery efforts related to Hurricanes Maria and Irma, cautioning how bad things could get if it experienced another disaster.

He renewed that call Sept. 20, saying in a statement that “Puerto Rico will need more aid to address the damages from Hurricane Fiona, the island’s child poverty crisis and recovery from previous disasters.”

Read more here.

US Catholic quotes Eric LeCompte on the use of rising interest rates to combat inflation, and its implications for debt-ridden countries. Read an excerpt below, and click here for the full article.

We can’t fight inflation at the expense of the poor

By Kevin Clarke

In this time of converging crises, rising interest rates “mean developing countries have higher debt payments just when they need to invest more to protect their people,” Eric LeCompte, director of Jubilee USA Network, reminded policymakers as G20 finance ministers convened in Bali, Indonesia in July. “Countries need debt relief, not more debt.”

Raising interest rates to combat inflation can only be one aspect of a comprehensive approach to stabilizing the global economic order. A human factor, the church’s preferential option for the poor, must be part of the calculus among economists in Washington, Geneva, Brussels, and New York.

Read more here.

WAMC quotes Eric LeCompte on an article detailing Assemblywoman Pat Fahy and the New York Taxpayer and International Debt Crisis Protection Act. Below is a brief excerpt, and click here for the full article.

Fahy introduces bill to help developing nations recover from pandemic

By Ashley Hupfl

At the state Capitol Wednesday, Assemblywoman Fahy said the New York Taxpayer and International Debt Crises Protection Act would close that gap by ensuring private creditors participate alongside public creditors on comparable terms. The DSSI is set to expire at the end of the year if it is not once again extended, but the Common Framework does not.

Eric LeCompte is executive director of the Jubilee USA Network, a coalition of religious institutions and labor groups. He argues the bill would also help the United States, because the IMF says inequality is being driven by global debt.

“The problems that developing countries are facing, that emerging markets, middle-income countries are facing are also a part of the problems we're facing in the United States in terms of economic shocks and supply shocks. The reality in terms of the Trump administration and Biden administration continuing the bi- partisan calls for debt relief…it's more than just helping the most vulnerable people on Earth that we as the religious community deeply care about. It's also about protecting our investments.”

Read more here.

GlobalCapital quotes Eric LeCompte on the slow progress. of the G-20 Common Framework to adequately combat debt crises around the world.

Common Framework not enough in face of rising debt distress

By Oliver West, John Crabb, Elliot Wilson

Click here for the full article.

German news company Badische Zeitung quotes Eric LeCompte on the IMF and World Bank's sluggish aid towards African countries. Read an original and translated excerpt from the article, and click here for the full article

Afrika ist unzufrieden

By Rolf Obertreis

Nicht-Regierungsorganisationen wie etwa das Jubilee USA Network äußern ebenfalls Kritik. "Die Kombination aus hoher Inflation und Rezession trifft die Armen und Ärmsten massiv", klagt Jubilee-Direktor Eric LeCompte. Einige der vorgeschlagenen Einspar-Lösungen und höhere Zinsen würden zusätzliche Schmerzen verursachen. Dazu kämen die Folgen des Klimawandels, die arme und ärmste Länder besonders treffen. Mindestens 300 Milliarden Dollar seien für Anpassungsmaßnahmen bis 2050 nötig, heißt es beim IWF. Die Nicht-Regierungsorganisation Eurodad sieht 85 Prozent der Weltbevölkerung von rigiden Sparmaßnahmen betroffen. Unter anderem würden Programme zur Unterstützung von Frauen, Kindern und Älteren gestrichen, Gehälter von Lehrkräften gekappt und Subventionen für den Gesundheitssektor getilgt.

(Translated) Non-governmental organizations such as the Jubilee USA Network have also expressed criticism. "The combination of high inflation and recession is hitting the poor and the poorest hard," complains Jubilee director Eric LeCompte. Some of the proposed savings solutions and higher interest rates would cause additional pain. In addition, there are the consequences of climate change, which hit poor and poorest countries particularly hard. According to the IMF, at least 300 billion dollars are needed for adjustment measures by 2050. The non-governmental organization Eurodad sees 85 percent of the world's population affected by rigid austerity measures. Among other things, programs to support women, children and the elderly would be canceled, teachers' salaries would be cut and subsidies for the health sector would be eliminated.

Read here for more.

WORT 89.9 FM features Eric LeCompte on a brief podcast detailing the effects Biden's student debt cancellation plan has on various communities. 

Lecompte: How Student Debt Cancellation Affects Communities

Click here for the full audio transcript (accessible through SoundCloud).

Crux features Jubilee USA Network and Eric LeCompte on the topic of Puerto Rico's increasingly severe economic challenges in light of efforts in creating debt restructuring plans. Read an excerpt below, and click here for the full article.

Puerto Rico ‘at a crossroads’ as economic crisis takes toll

By John Lavenburg

“We’re at a crossroads,” Eric LeCompte, executive director of Jubilee USA Network told Crux.

“If Puerto Rico receives more economic shocks – natural disasters, the COVID-19 pandemic – without more aid or resources, it’s really going to get much worse,” LeCompte said. “On the other hand, if Puerto Rico gets the resources it needs to deal with disaster relief, child poverty, climate, to be able to support new jobs; if these things move forward not only will it help make Puerto Rico’s debt sustainable, but it will ensure there’s positive economic growth.”

Jubilee USA Network is a faith-based organization that promotes debt relief around the world. Since 2014 it has monitored Puerto Rico’s financial and debt crisis, growing child poverty rates and policy implementation and has advocated alongside Puerto Rico’s religious leaders.

Read here for more.

Presbyterian Mission features an article by Aldo Caliari detailing the need for a more robust response to the debt crisis borne from the COVID-19 pandemic and Ukraine invasion, particularly from the G-20. Read a brief excerpt below, and click here for the full article.

The International Community Must Respond to the Debt Crisis

By Aldo Caliari

Paying debt service also comes at the expense of infrastructure investments critical for recovering and building resilience to climate and other shocks. Under-investment eventually takes its toll. Many weaknesses in developing countries’ response to the pandemic can be traced back to years of skimping on health and jobs infrastructure. Jubilee USA and LATINDADD’s Atlas of Vulnerability found that in all but two of the developing countries for which it has data, health spending per person is less than a quarter the average in industrialized countries. Africa, with the highest share of population affected by food crises – at 346 million – and dependent on Ukraine and Russia for a high share of food imports, is also the region most vulnerable to climate change. Lack of climate change preparedness, amidst rising floods, water scarcity and other weather-driven events, dramatically lower agricultural output and add to COVID- and war-induced food access barriers.

Read here for more.

The New York Times published an article detailing the struggle of Barbados as it faces the challenges of paying its debt to the financial institutions and being further hampered by climate change disasters, with significance to Prime Minister Mia Mottley's work on the matter. Read an excerpt below, and click here for the full story.

The Barbados Rebellion

By Abrahm Lustgarten

With Lagarde on the phone, Mottley made her pitch. Barbados, she said, was going to default on the debt it owed to private banks and investors. She wanted Lagarde’s support in persuading them to renegotiate its terms. The I.M.F. is both the assessor and the enforcer of global economic policy, the de facto gatekeeper to the world’s capital markets. Mottley knew that banks and investors would work with her only if Barbados were participating in a formal I.M.F. program for economic reform — and it had to start immediately.

Mottley told Lagarde that Barbados was prepared to do voluntarily what most countries have to be coerced to do: cut its budget and raise taxes. But she needed something in return. With the effects of climate change bearing down on the region, the kind of austerity the I.M.F. demanded from developing nations — slashing the size of government agencies and firing thousands of public employees while auctioning off real estate and other national assets — would no longer work. Mottley wanted Lagarde to endorse an economic program that would still allow her to raise salaries of civil servants, build schools and improve piping and wiring for water and power. “Before you carry people on a long journey,” she told Lagarde, “you have to give them a little breakfast.”

Read here for more.

Barron's quotes Eric LeCompte in an article detailing the divisions within the G-20 in inviting Russian representatives to meetings in light of the Ukraine invasion and the financial crises borne from it. Read an excerpt below, and click here for the full article.

G20 Finance Talks Overshadowed By Ukraine End Without Joint Communique

By Marchio Gorbiano

Observers said the failure to agree on a joint communique would hinder coordinated efforts to solve rising inflation and food shortages.

"The lack of a G20 finance ministers' communique means it will be more difficult for the G20 to forge a consensus on vital issues in the fall," said Eric LeCompte, executive director of Jubilee USA Network, an NGO that lobbies for developing nation debt relief.

"Internal divisions hinder the G20's ability to act decisively and leaves the world in uncharted waters."

Read here for more.

Financial Times features an article by Aldo Caliari on the need for the G-7 to influence China to take part in solutions for debt crises across the world. 

Letter: G7 needs China to help head off a debt crisis

By Aldo Caliari

Read here for more.

West Orlando News quotes Eric LeCompte on the recent WTO vaccine decision with regards to developing countries facing challenges in accessing vaccines. Read an excerpt below, and click here for the full story.

World Trade Organization Vaccine Decision Falls Short, Says Development Group

“For countries struggling to protect their people against continued COVID outbreaks, this decision won’t do enough,” said Eric LeCompte, Executive Director of the religious development group Jubilee USA. “After more than two years of a pandemic that cost millions of lives, developing countries need a suspension of multiple WTO rules in order to boost access to vaccines, tests and treatments.”

Read here for more.

American newspaper/magazine Barron's highlights the challenge of African economic crises that the G-7 faces with respect to debt relief, Special Drawing Rights, and other mechanisms. Read an excerpt below, and click here for the full article.

A Chance to Stand Behind Africa in a Moment of Unprecedented Challenge

G-7 leaders should commit to more SDR transfers and more channels to carry them out. They can tie their commitments to assurance from recipients that they will set participatory and transparent strategies for applying SDRs to sustainable and climate goals. It is important that recycled SDRs do not create new debt, and come without harmful conditions such as austerity reforms that worsen human development or access to essential services. In particular, the African Development Bank and the International Fund for Agricultural Development, with their proven experience driving agricultural development, can harness the power of SDRs to stop a catastrophic food crisis in the region.

Read here for more.

Presbyterian Mission features Aldo Caliari on the International Debt Crisis, private creditors, and the New York Taxpayer and International Debt Crises Protection Act. Below is a brief excerpt, and click here to read the full article.

Call to New York Presbyterians: Take Action on International Debt Crisis

By Aldo Caliari

In May, New York State Assembly member Patricia Fahy, Chair of the Banks Committee, introduced legislation that would ensure private creditors participate in debt relief initiatives at the same level as the US government, other governments and other creditors. Under the New York Taxpayer and International Debt Crises Protection Act, a debtor country cleared to have debt cuts in an international initiative would be protected from private creditor litigation. Should a private creditor sue, the legislation requires that the judge reduces their claim by the same proportion agreed in the applicable global debt initiative. Of course, with such ruling expected, the hope is that most creditors will likely not choose to go to court at all. Debtor countries can manage crises more efficiently, finding a quicker exit and lowering the economic and social costs to their people, especially the most vulnerable.

Read more here.

Eric LeCompte was featured in Crux on the IMF withholding emergency COVID funds from Afghanistan. Read an excerpt below and click here to read the full article.

IMF emergency COVID funds withheld from Afghanistan

By John Lavenburg

NEW YORK ­­– The International Monetary Fund on Aug. 23 withheld $455 million in emergency COVID-19 relief funding from Afghanistan, after the Taliban’s takeover of the country forced the organization to withhold its recognition of the Afghan government.

The withheld funds are a part of $650 billion in emergency reserve funds, known as the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights, that the organization made available to countries worldwide on Aug. 23.

Eric LeCompte, the executive director of Jubilee USA Network who has for months advocated for the creation of these funds alongside the U.S. bishops’ conference and other religious groups, told Crux that’s it’s unfortunate Afghanistan won’t receive the funds, but called it a “good move” for the IMF given the country’s unstable situation.

“There are real questions when you don’t know how the government is going to act, you don’t know who the authority is, or who’s in charge, where the IMF has to pull back its recognition of the government in order to ensure that money is being spent correctly,” LeCompte said. “So, unfortunately, it will have, I think, a negative impact on the people just as all of the questions around a government transition in Afghanistan right now.”

Eric LeCompte spoke on WPKN's radio news show about the present need for Covid-19 vaccines in developing countries. Read an excerpt below and click here to listen to the show from 1:35:00 - 2:00:00.

Eric LeCompte of Jubilee USA on urgent need to distribute COVID vaccines to developing nations

Selected Statements from Eric LeCompte

"The reason that the G7, G20, and the World Trade Organization must act by November is to ensure that we have enough vaccine doses for the entire world."

"A big part of the problem has been dealing with the commitments that wealthy countries need to make when developing countries do not have the resources to combat the pandemic. It’s a real issue that the financing and aid has not been raised sooner by global decision makers."

"Without the aid and financing for pharmaceutical waivers so that countries in the developing world can have the resources to produce the vaccine on their own, we are not going to be able to stop what could be a perpetual economic crisis for the US as well as the developing world into the future."

Listen more here from 1:35:00 - 2:00:00.

The United Methodist Church reports on Jubilee USA's efforts for global vaccine access. Read an excerpt below and click here for the full article. 

The Need for Worldwide Vaccine Access: Citizens of many countries are unprotected as COVID-19 cases rise.

By Linda Bloom

United Methodist and other faith leaders view access to the COVID-19 vaccine as a human right, along with other basic health care needs.

But citizens in many countries remain unprotected from the coronavirus as multinational efforts to increase vaccine availability have fallen short. The total number of known coronavirus cases worldwide has now surpassed 200 million.

The Rev. Susan Henry-Crowe, general secretary of the General Board of Church and Society, was among the religious leaders who met virtually Aug. 4 with U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to express support for waiving vaccine patents to increase COVID vaccine access for developing countries.

The meeting with Tai was organized by Jubilee USA and Eric LeCompte, its executive director, said Tai understood the urgency of the situation. “Waiving vaccine COVID patents will help produce more vaccines and save lives in the developing world,” he said.

Read more here. 

Eric LeCompte and Jubilee USA Network are featured in Crux on the recent meeting with US Trade Representative Katherine Tai and the push to waive COVID-19 vaccine patents. Read an excerpt below and click here for the full article. 

Religious leaders push waiver on patents for COVID vaccines

By John Lavenburg 

If world leaders don’t take steps this fall to get COVID-19 vaccines to the world’s poorest countries, according to Eric LeCompte, the executive director of Jubilee USA Network, then the darkest days of the pandemic still lie ahead.

"Temporarily waiving COVID-19 vaccine patents is an important step to accomplishing that goal," LeCompte said. Earlier this week, religious leaders advocated for that action to U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, who expressed support.

“If [the World Trade Organization] doesn’t move forward, we’re not going to have the vaccines we need for global distribution, let alone what it seems now are a necessity for a third shot or booster shot for people who have already been vaccinated in the developed world,” LeCompte told Crux.

The meeting with Tai was the first of its kind between religious leaders and the U.S. Trade Representative. Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Military Services, who is a member of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on International Justice and Peace, represented the Catholic Church.

LeCompte said Broglio and the other religious leaders were able to “very profoundly share the stories of what’s happening in most of the world” when it comes to the spread of COVID-19, and convey the need for urgent action on issues such as the temporarily waiving the property rights on COVID-19 vaccines.

“It already may be too late to curb some of the great challenges we’re going to face, and that’s unfortunate. It’s unfortunate that the World Trade Organization went on vacation instead of dealing with the most urgent matter before it,” LeCompte said. “It’s unfortunate that world leaders have been slow to act over the summer at the G-7 and G-20 with making decisions that need to be made in terms of financing and aid for global vaccine distribution.”

Read more here.