Presbyterian News Service covered the upcoming Jubilee Weekend and the opportunities it presents. Read an excerpt below and the full article here.

Jubilee Weekend is an opportunity for advocacy Oct. 15-17

By Darla Carter

Presbyterians are being encouraged to support a weekend of advocacy by the Jubilee USA Network, a partner of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) that promotes debt relief for poor countries and an equitable distribution of vaccines.

“A COVID Response that Shares Medicine, Ends Poverty and Protects Our Planet” is the theme of this year’s Jubilee Weekend, which will be Oct. 15-17.

“Jubilee Weekend takes place each year, the same weekend as the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and World Bank meetings. It’s also right before the G20, a forum of nations with the world’s largest economies," said Stefanie Ostfeld, managing director of the Jubilee USA Network. “At these meetings, world leaders are going to be making important decisions on many COVID-19 efforts, including debt relief, pandemic recovery and equitable vaccine access, so participating in Jubilee Weekend is an opportunity for religious groups to make their voices heard, demonstrating to decision makers these issues are a priority, they matter, and really, calling on them to act on behalf of the vulnerable.”

Anyone interested in participating can sign up on the network’s website to receive a packet of information about ways to get engaged, from holding worship services to calling members of Congress

“You could offer one prayer for vaccine distribution or increased aid for developing countries,” Ostfeld said. “A congregation could dedicate a worship service to poverty reduction or debt relief. You can also sign and circulate a petition to policymakers. You could hold a discussion group on these issues.”

Jubilee USA is a coalition of religious, development and advocacy groups that says it has won more than $130 billion in debt relief for the world’s poorest economies.

“We mobilize our members to take action to help build an economy that serves, protects and promotes participation of the most vulnerable,” Ostfeld said.

Read more here.

Eric LeCompte was mention by NPR in a story covering President Biden's COVID-19 summit and rich nations' role in mitigating vaccine inequity. Listen to the full story and read the accompanying article here.   

The U.S. is donating more COVID vaccines and wants other rich nations to pitch in

By Tamara Keith/NPR

Biden defended the U.S. response, saying his first responsibility was to make sure Americans were protected, and arguing that the U.S. donations have been generous. “For every one shot we’ve administered to date in America, we have now committed to do three shots to the rest of the world,” Biden said.

The new tranche of Pfizer doses will be manufactured in U.S. plants and will be bought at a “not-for-profit” price, the officials said. Most U.S. vaccine shipments — 800 million doses — will ship between January and September 2022.

Read more here.

Eric LeCompte featured in Crux regarding the increased need for attention and work on global vaccine distribution following Biden's COVID-19 summit. Read an excerpt below and the full article here.

After Biden’s COVID-19 summit, ‘more work needs to be done’

By John Lavenburg

To date there have been more than six billion COVID-19 doses administered worldwide. However, more than 70 percent of all vaccine doses have been administered in 10 countries. This disparity has led Catholic leaders worldwide – including Pope Francis and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops – to call for vaccine equity.

The commitments made at the summit aim to get 40 percent of the population in developing populations vaccinated by the end of the year, what LeCompte considers a “very, very hard commitment” to meet given the challenges that exist.

“The more realistic commitment is to have 70 percent of the world’s developing population vaccinated by mid-year next year, but that’s still a ways out and as important as the progress is, I’m still worried whether or not that’s going to be fast enough,” LeCompte said.

Chief among the challenges is the logistics of getting COVID-19 vaccine doses to developing nations and subsequently getting them in people’s arms. LeCompte notes that vaccine donations and production aren’t enough “if we don’t have the actual infrastructure in developing countries to deal with these issues.”

“There’s a lot more work that needs to be done, a lot more money that needs to be raised to be able to support the ability to get shots in the arms, as well as deal with all of these other vital healthcare infrastructure needs,” LeCompte said.

Eric LeCompte was quoted by Bloomberg in an article covering President Biden's virtual COVID-19 summit and call on rich nations to donate vaccines. Read an excerpt below and the full article here.   

Biden Calls on Rich Countries to Escalate Vaccine Donations

By Josh Wingrove

The new U.S. commitment is on top of a 500-million-dose donation announced in June at the Group of Seven summit in the U.K. Distribution of those vaccines began last month. Combined with 130 million doses shipped out so far that had initially been bought for domestic use, the U.S. donation total is now at least 1.13 billion doses, more than double the total delivered domestically.

Of those, at least 330 million have been pledged by the end of 2021. The remaining 800 million, including all of Biden’s new pledge, are to be delivered in 2022. 

This is the first time that the U.S. has set a global vaccination target, though advocates are urging more aggressive ones. The UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, has called for 70% of the world to be vaccinated by the end of June, three months before Biden’s timeline.

“In some ways June and September are just too late,” said Eric LeCompte, executive director of Jubilee USA Network, a non-profit group. He gave the U.S. credit for hosting the summit. “We’re so excited that they are taking leadership on this, because there is unfortunately a leadership void, but we needed to get all this done yesterday,” he said. 

Eric LeCompte was quoted by the Guardian in an article covering President Biden's decision to donate an additional 500 million COVID vaccines to poor countries. Read an excerpt below and the full article here.   

US to donate an additional 500m Covid vaccines to poorer countries, says Biden

By David Smith 

Joe Biden has announced that the US will donate an additional 500m Covid-19 vaccines to low- and middle-income countries around the world, bringing America’s total global donation to more than 1.1bn doses.

The US president outlined the plan on Wednesday at a virtual coronavirus summit where he urged world leaders to “go big” in tackling the pandemic and closing the vaccination gap with poorer nations.

Eric LeCompte, executive director of Jubilee USA Network and a UN finance expert, who is attending the summit, said in an interview: “It’s amazing that the Biden administration is filling a leadership void but we cannot move quickly enough from our perspective for two reasons. There’s the moral case that developing countries are experiencing a fourth wave of the pandemic and people are dying in the streets. We have to save lives.

“But there’s also something that is equally important: if we are not focused on getting shots in arms in the developing world, more variants are going to come to the United States and we will face a continuing health crisis. Perhaps even more significantly, we’ll continue to experience severe economic shocks all over the world in the years to come.”

Read more here. 

On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, President Biden virtually hosts world leaders to make commitments for global vaccine and health equipment distribution. 

“As many developing countries struggle with a fourth wave of the pandemic, vaccines and treatment cannot come soon enough," noted Eric LeCompte who is attending the White House summit. LeCompte is the Executive Director of Jubilee USA Network and a UN finance expert. "The longer it takes to vaccinate the majority of the world's population translates to more virus variants and shocks to the global economy."

The White House summit focuses on targets of vaccinating at least 70% of every country's population, regional distribution hubs for protective equipment and global access to COVID treatments. 

"Bringing together heads of state and business leaders, Biden is filling a global leadership void to save lives and prevent more challenges to the global economy,” added LeCompte. "We face a more dire situation because the G20 failed to deliver on financing global vaccine distribution this summer."

In August, LeCompte and major religious leaders met with US Trade Representative Katherine Tai on waiving COVID vaccine patents to increase vaccine production and access for developing countries.

"We agree with the White House on waiving vaccine pharmaceutical patents to boost global production of vaccines," stated LeCompte. "We don't expect the summit to focus on this critical issue."

Read about the US Trade Representative Tai/Jubilee USA Network roundtable here.

Eric LeCompte featured on episode 921 of The Common Good Podcast entitled "Forgive Us Our Debts—Woes and Wins in Canceling Student Debt." Click here to listen to the episode.

Episode 0921— Eric LeCompte: Forgive Us Our Debts—Woes and Wins in Canceling Student Debt

Selected Statements from Eric LeCompte

"Student debt is a very important issue and it affects many of us, not only students but often grandparents, parents, and friends as well," said Eric LeCompte. "At the heart of all of this is the question of what kind of education should be enough and should we be ensuring that everyone receives it without putting a particular type of cost on that."

"There's a lot of good news in terms of the reality that when we look at student debt, there are many groups that are working on it, that are concerned about it," LeCompte said. "And in particular, because of the pandemic and its economic challenges, a significant part of the US population is facing this issue and you see it in the news a lot more than before." 

"The developing world loses a trillion dollars a year in tax evasion, tax avoidance, and corruption. Had these monies been captured, they wouldn't be experiences such a crisis," continues Eric. "Had the institutional jubilee process that we've been working on in terms of global bankruptcy that now Pope Francis endorses, had that and previous agreements been put in place after '08-'09 crisis or in 2014 or 2015, we would have the tools right now in place to stabilize our economies." 

Listen to the entire podcast episode here.

Eric LeCompte was quoted in a West Orlando News Article covering the COVID-19 summit convened by the White House at the United Nations General Assembly. Read an excerpt below and find the full article here. 

White House to Convene Global COVID-19 Summit at UN General Assembly

By Rebecca Martin 

President Joe Biden will convene a COVID-19 Summit during the UN General Assembly on September 22nd. The White House is asking world leaders, civil society, industry and philanthropists to make commitments to vaccinate the world, save lives and establish a health security financing mechanism.

The Biden White House is focusing on four main themes:

• Vaccinate the World by enhancing equitable access to vaccines and getting shots in arms.
• Save Lives Now by solving the oxygen crisis, and making tests, therapeutics and PPE more available.
• Build Back Better by establishing a sustainable health security financing mechanism, and global leadership for emerging threats.
• Calling the World to Account by aligning around targets, tracking progress, and supporting one another in fulfilling our commitments.

“The summit shows how important it is for us to act quickly,” said Eric LeCompte, Executive Director of the Jubilee USA Network. “Biden knows that if we don’t move global vaccine distribution forward this year, we’ll lose more lives and our economy will suffer across the US and around the world.”

Read more here. 

Honduran newspaper El Heraldo quoted Eric LeCompte in an article discussing $300 million on SDRs allocated to Honduras. Read an excerpt below and the full article here.

$300 million will favor Honduras 

By Roldán Duarte Maradiaga 

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will carry out a global issuance of Special Drawing Rights (SDR), in favor of its members, for an amount of US $ 650,000 million, “destined to underpin the global economic recovery and help the nations that must face gigantic levels of debt”. That amount is expected to be distributed according to the quotas of each country.

Eric LeCompte, executive director of Jubilee USA Network, believes that the measure adopted by the IMF "will not be enough." He believes that: "Rich countries that receive emergency reserves that they do not need, should transfer those resources to developing countries that are fighting the pandemic." In this case, we must await the reaction of the advanced countries."

Read more here.

Eric LeCompte was featured in an article by The Star about pandemic-related losses in developing countries. Read an excerpt below and the full article here. 

Poor countries to lose $12 trillion to corona by 2025 - UNCTAD

By Victor Amadala

Developing countries will lose $12 trillion through 2025 because they lack vaccines and the resources that wealthy countries use to stimulate their economies.

An analysis by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) shows poor countries will lose a decade of development and face slow economic recovery.

“The economic and health crisis is getting worse in most countries,” said Eric LeCompte, a UN finance expert and head of the religious development group Jubilee USA Network.

According to him, developing countries need vaccines and more resources to confront the pandemic. He added that without more aid, there is little chance that poor countries can meet development goals.

“Debt relief must move more quickly and must include all developing countries mired in this crisis,” noted LeCompte.

He added that developing countries that are categorized as middle-income countries, face the worst extreme poverty increases and job losses because of the pandemic.

''Unfortunately, these countries are currently left out of processes to cut their debts,'' LeCompte said. 

Read more here. 

President Biden will convene a COVID-19 Summit during the UN General Assembly on September 22. The White House is asking world leaders, civil society, industry and philanthropists to make commitments to vaccinate the world, save lives and establish a health security financing mechanism.

Eric LeCompte, Executive Director of the religious development organization Jubilee USA Network, releases the following statement on the summit:

"The summit shows how important it is for us to act quickly.

"Biden knows that if we don't move global vaccine distribution forward this year, we'll lose more lives and our economy will suffer across the US and around the world."

More information about the summit can be found here.

Debt Increased by $500 Billion for Developing Countries in First Year of Pandemic