Friends,
217 - thats the number of the largest religious bodies in the United States and Africa joined by the biggest labor unions, human rights, environmental and anti-poverty groups who signed our Jubilee USA letter to the G20.
Our G20 letter calls for debt cancellation for developing countries, more aid for countries, new processes to prevent financial crisis and measures that confront tax evasion and corruption.
Yesterday - ahead of this weekend's G20 Finance Minister Meeting, we delivered those Jubilee USA letters, signed by groups representing hundreds of millions of people, to the G20, IMF and White House.
Tonight we will be delivering petitions to the G20, ahead of their meeting, signed by thousands of individuals, religious leaders, economists and advocates. You have until 9:00 PM tonight to sign the petition before our delivery. Please add your name now.
Ahead of tomorrow's meetings, Jubilee USA Executive Director Eric LeCompte shares our views and coronavirus crisis campaign efforts in thousands of global news outlets, including Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance and Economia.
The letters we sent yesterday are the latest stage of our coronavirus crisis campaign efforts we launched in February. You can read more about those efforts in Eric's e-mail below.
Counting their membership in the millions, labor unions including the United Steelworkers (USW), American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) joined faith groups in the G20 letter. Other signers include human rights organizations like Amnesty International USA and Pax Christi and also environmental advocates ranging from Amazon Watch to Friends of the Earth. Development groups were represented on the Jubilee USA letter such as Islamic Relief, American Jewish World Service, American Friends Service Committee, Bread for the World, Action Aid, Oxfam, RESULTS and Health Gap.
Major religious institutions led the Jubilee USA G20 letter including: The All Africa Conference of Churches, National Council of Churches, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and the Episcopal, Evangelical Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist and United Church of Christ Churches. The Unitarian Universalist Association and the largest representations of Quaker communities and Buddhist consortiums are on the letter. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops sent a separate joint letter with Jubilee USA and Pope Francis continues to push for measures outlined in the statement to the G20. You can read the full list of letter signers here.
The majority of signers on the letter were churches, synagogues, dioceses and religious congregations representing small towns and urban centers.
To be counted in our G20 petitions signed by individuals, economists and religious leaders - you must sign tonight.
The United Nations estimates that 265 million more people are facing famine due to the coronavirus crisis. The International Labor Organization says 400 million jobs will be wiped out and the IMF asserts the current economic crisis rivals the Great Depression.
Jubilee USA began meeting with world leaders and generating tens of thousands of messages on the crisis in February. In March, the leadership of Jubilee USA outlined a coronavirus response plan for the IMF and G20.
In April, the IMF and G20 agreed to cancel 6 months of debt payments for the 25 poorest countries and create a plan for 73 countries to suspend debt payments for 2020.
This weekend the G20 considers increasing more debt relief for countries already benefiting and other developing countries who've been left out so far. The private sector has resisted participating and that's on the G20 agenda too. Finally they'll discuss accessing trillions of dollars in global reserve funds or the Special Drawing Rights. These are resources we need immediately.
Please join us and sign our petition before we send it to the G20 tonight.
Gratefully,
Zachary Conti
Director of Policy and Advocacy
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Eric LeCompte, Jubilee USA Network <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 1:24 PM
Subject: G20 COVID: Aid, Debt, Transparency Decisions
Friends,
This week the G20 considers our Jubilee USA recommendations to protect all of us from financial crisis and deal with the global health and economic impacts of the coronavirus.
More than 100 world leaders and former heads of state endorsed our recommendations. Will you join the thousands who already signed our G20 petition?
Since February, our Jubilee USA team worked around the clock to move forward solutions to the coronavirus crisis - a crisis the IMF says rivals the Great Depression.
After our victories in April and May - Her Excellency Mona Juul, the United Nations Economic and Social Council President, asked that Jubilee USA present coronavirus crisis solutions at a special June United Nations session for world leaders. Our UN speech was covered in more then 10,000 newspapers and television shows from CNN to the Associated Press. These are the recommendations that the G20 considers this weekend.
Please join the thousands who already signed our coronavirus petition to the G20.
Thanks for your partnership,
Eric LeCompte
Executive Director
Twitter: @Eric_LeCompte
www.jubileeusa.org/support-us