A Common Dreams article features Eric LeCompte on the World Trade Organization's (WTO) talks to waive patent rights for the COVID vaccine. Read an excerpt below, and click here for the full story.

'Shame It's Taken So Long': Health Advocates Welcome Formal WTO Talks to Suspend Covid Vaccine Patents

By Kenny Stancil

A recent analysis by a coalition of humanitarian groups estimated that at the current vaccination rate, it would take low-income countries 57 years to fully vaccinate their populations against Covid-19.

"Without enough vaccines, developing countries continue to lose lives and jobs," said Eric LeCompte of Jubilee USA Network, whose advocacy work includes pushing for equitable medicine access in trade agreements. "We must move as fast as possible so all people can receive coronavirus vaccines, therapies, and medical equipment to respond to the crisis."

LeCompte added that "unless we act quickly on global vaccine access, most of the world's countries will see lost decades of development. As the crisis worsens in developing countries, wealthy countries will face more economic shocks."

As epidemiologists and advocates for a "people's vaccine" have stressed since the beginning of the pandemic, the more chances the virus has to mutate, the more the lives and livelihoods of millions of people around the world are endangered.

Read the full article here.

Friends,

• We had a major victory as the G20, G7, and US agreed to create $650 billion in global reserve funds (Special Drawing Rights). Developing countries will receive over $200 billion in emergency support
  
  
• We won a historic G20 debt reduction process for developing countries suffering from the COVID health and economic crisis. This is the most significant debt relief and anti-corruption process we have won to date with 73 poor countries gaining access to new resources to confront the COVID crisis. Three have already requested relief
  
  
• After 10 years of work, the Corporate Transparency Act passed Congress. Our bipartisan bill sheds light on anonymous shell corporations which shield human traffickers, steal debt relief and enable tax evasion and corruption

PS. When you make a gift now to support Jubilee USA's efforts, it will be doubled. Please join me and donate now.

A Reuters article quotes Eric LeCompte on the G7 nations' discussions to create a minimum global corporate tax rate. Read an excerpt below, and click here for the full story.

UPDATE 1-G7 nations near historic deal on taxing multinationals

By David Milliken

Rich nations have struggled for years to agree on a way to raise more revenue from large multinationals such as Google, Amazon and Facebook, which often book profits in jurisdictions where they pay little or no tax.

U.S. President Joe Biden's administration has given the stalled talks fresh impetus by proposing a minimum global corporation tax rate of 15%, above the level in countries such as Ireland but below the lowest level in the G7.

"All countries face revenue loss when corporations don't pay their share in taxes," said Eric LeCompte, executive director of Jubilee USA, an alliance of organisations promoting debt relief.

"The G7 needs to support global tax reforms so we have resources for people to get beyond this pandemic," he added.

Read the full article here.

G7 finance ministers met in London to discuss global COVID-19 response, vaccines, debt relief and global tax reform.

Discussing global COVID response and tax policy, G7 finance ministers began two days of meetings on Friday.

Heads of the primary global financial, trade and health institutions urged government leaders to finance a $50 billion vaccine plan to end the pandemic. “A two-track pandemic is developing, with richer countries having access and poorer ones being left behind,” shared IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, World Bank President David Malpass, World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and World Trade Organization Director General Nkozi Okonjo-Iweala in a joint statement.

“Since the IMF released its vaccine plan at the G20 Health Summit 10 days ago, voices are growing to ensure universal vaccine access,” said Eric LeCompte, Executive Director of the religious development group Jubilee USA Network. “With what's at stake for everyone's health and the global economy, it's critical that we act quickly and invest more towards global vaccine access."

The IMF argues that the global vaccine investment would spur $9 trillion in economic gains by 2025. The proposal requires the mobilization of public and private donations and cheap loans. The leaders also called for surplus vaccines to be donated to developing countries.

The Collegeville Institute features a personal profile of Jubilee USA Network's Eric LeCompte, titled "All is Possible". Read an excerpt below, and click here for the full story.

All is Possible - A Profile of Eric LeCompte of Jubilee USA

By Catherine Hervey

When he was five or six years old, Eric LeCompte accompanied his parents to church and noticed the face of a suffering person in the sanctuary. He asked his parents who it was, and his mother told him it was Christ, the Son of God. His father added that we’re all children of God, and Eric decided something: if that was what happened to the children of God, he didn’t want to be part of it.

Today, Eric is the executive director of Jubilee USA, an interfaith network of more than 650 religious groups working to address the structural causes of global poverty and inequality by advocating for debt relief for impoverished nations. Eric is, by all accounts, very much involved with the suffering he saw on the face of Jesus. 

“If one of us is suffering, we are all suffering,” Eric says. And suffering, in all its myriad forms, is something he describes in the simplest terms: so many of us don’t have enough. Eric’s advocacy for the poor is based on the Jubilee year of the Torah—the fiftieth year when debts were forgiven, the enslaved liberated. These are the kinds of practices, Eric believes, that ensure we all have enough, because for many of the world’s most impoverished people, basic necessities like health care and education could be much more accessible if nations weren’t spending so much capital on debt payments. In Jubilee economics, Eric says, “We all have enough. We provide for each other and we’re protected from having too much.”

That striking choice of words—that the wealthiest of us need protection from having too much—seems at once radical and absolutely true. It brings to mind all the warnings about the perils of wealth in scripture, and also the work of social scientist Brené Brown, whose research indicates that the opposite of scarcity is not actually abundance but simply, as Eric says, enough.

Growing up as the oldest of four children in a working class family on the South Side of Chicago, Eric has his own personal experience with deprivation. “As a child, there were times when my parents were out of work, when our family did not have enough. And certainly that has been an incredible influence on my life, to ensure that all people have enough.”

Eric says his sense of calling didn’t materialize in any particular moment, but over a lifetime of daily prayer. For years he carried a copy of a sermon he heard preached while he was a student at Saint John’s. It was a sermon delivered by now Abbot John Klassen about the martyrs of Algiers, monks who served the local population in Algiers for years before they were killed, knowing each day the risks they were taking. Eric puts the message of the sermon this way: “The great sacrifice of the cross is not faced in just one moment. The great sacrifice comes after bearing small daily crosses, taking small daily risks and sacrifices that prepare us for greater action, greater risk, and perhaps the greatest sacrifice, of our lives.”

Read the full article here. 

Nuestramerica.TV's Cable a tierra with James Mencias features Jubilee USA's executive director Eric LeCompte on the new issuance of Special Drawing Rights to aid developing countries with debt relief. Click here to listen to the episode. 

EP. 4 Dinero sin deuda: ¿Es posible?

By James Mencias 

Selected Statements from Eric LeCompte

"We are looking at the issue of Special Drawing Rights right now in which we are working towards the issuance of $650 billion new SDRs. That means, right away, that there will be $224 billion available for middle- and low-income developing countries.

"It is incredibly exciting because most of these countries can make use of these new available resources for the acquisition of vaccines, debt payments, tackling poverty, or funding social programs.

"About $420 billion of the new SDRs will go to the developed world. Nonetheless, there is a process moving forward in the International Monetary Fund in which those new reserve funds will be donated to the developing world so that more resources are available to fight the pandemic."

Click here to listen to the full episode. 

As worldwide COVID cases peak, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva unveiled a $50 billion proposal to support vaccinations of 60% of the world's population. During a G20 and European Commission summit, Georgieva argued the global vaccine investment would end the pandemic and spur $9 trillion in economic gains by 2025.

A High Priority is Debt Relief, Says Treasury Secretary Yellen in Address

Debt relief for poor countries is a high priority for the US, shared Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in virtual remarks at a Vatican meeting of global finance leaders and Catholic dignitaries. A G20 debt reduction process is in place for poor countries, but developing middle-income countries cannot access the process. During Yellen's address, she lifted US support for developing middle-income countries to qualify for debt relief.

“Yellen's participation in this Vatican event shows the synergy between the pandemic response priorities of Pope Francis and the US Treasury,” said Executive Director of the religious development group Jubilee USA Network. LeCompte advises the Vatican on economic issues and organized a meeting between high-level religious leaders and Yellen in March. "The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences did an incredible job convening leaders to confront the current crisis."

“Dreaming of a Better Restart,” the conference that Yellen attended, focused on economic policies to combat inequality, climate change and food insecurity.

Yellen remarked on US support for creating $650 billion of emergency currency, known as Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). While developing countries will receive more that $200 billion of these new resources, more than $400 billion is received by wealthy countries. Yellen stated the US wants to donate their share of SDRs to poor countries.

“The support of the US to get as many new resources to developing countries is critical,” stated LeCompte. “More resources are needed to get vaccines to developing countries. Less than 2% of vaccines have reached poor countries.”

The US recently signaled support to waive pharmaceutical patents to increase access for COVID-19 vaccines and therapies.

On climate, Yellen repeated that the US will use its full power to tackle climate change. May 24th is the sixth anniversary of Pope Francis’ encyclical on climate change, ‘Laudato Si.’ 

"Yellen's powerful comments on climate change to this special Vatican conference come as we are celebrating the Holy Father's landmark teaching on protecting the environment," shared LeCompte.

On Monday, the International Monetary Fund approved a plan to pay for Sudan's debt owed to the financial institution. Using grants and internal resources, IMF leadership agreed to clear $1.3 billion in missed debt payments or arrears.