Eric LeCompte, Executive Director of Jubilee USA, was recently featured in Presbyterian News Service speaking on the Jubilee Year. Read an excerpt below or full article here.
Presbyterian Advocacy Hour Focuses on Season of Creation and Debt Relief for Developing Countries
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”The second speaker was LeCompte, who highlighted Jubilee 2025 campaigns calling for debt justice and financial reforms for communities burdened by unsustainable debt.
LeCompte stressed the importance of faith-based support and urged Presbyterians to go to the network’s website to find the Jubilee 2025 petition, which individuals and organizations can sign to join the call for debt forgiveness for struggling communities.
“It's a vital time right now to be contacting members of Congress to say support global debt relief accountability legislation and accountability mechanisms for the IMF,” said LeCompte, referring to the International Monetary Fund. “We'd encourage people to go to our website, Jubilee usa.org, and there you'll find a petition that over 200 faith-based organizations are moving around the world.”
LeCompte explained that the debt crisis is intertwined with issues related to climate change and to countries’ ability to provide for social services.
He noted that “when a country is in crisis, they're going to exploit whatever resources they have,” and “when we take gas, oil and coal out of the ground" and massive deforestation occurs, "it has a cyclical impact, so not only are those countries being exploited for these resources, it's also driving up the challenges of climate change as well as taking away one of our most precious resources, which are older trees and older plants, which can absorb CO2 emissions.”
He also provided historical perspective, noting that “the vast amount of industrialization and growth in the north that took place, starting in the 1800s by stealing resources from developing countries in the south, consuming them for the past several 100 years in the north, not only spurred climate change, but also created a greater debt for the south,” and “countries were unprepared to deal with climate mitigation and adaptation.”
Turning to a different question, LeCompte expressed concerns about funding cuts, such as those involving the United States Agency for International Development, that he said are negatively affecting health care and other services.
“That health crisis not only will impact economies, but it will also create additional expenses for countries to be able to overcome,” he said.
Furthermore, “we've seen pretty much every major religious body that we work with be impacted from those kinds of cuts” if they relied on such funding to provide services abroad. “The cuts make the crises more extreme.’”