June 09, 2024
Jubilee USA partnered with Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung New York to publish How to Ensure Debt Sustainability Accelerates Sustainable Development, by Matthew Martin.
The paper was the third to launch as part of a series that gathered practitioners to write on the theme "Debt Sustainability Assessments and their Role in the Global Financial Architecture." The papers will be chapters in a report to appear later in the summer.
How to Ensure Debt Sustainability Accelerates Sustainable Development, by Matthew Martin
A new study by Matthew Martin makes the case for why and how to adapt DSAs to National Sustainable Development Plans and National Defined Contributions and Adaptation Plans to confront the climate crisis.
The paper addresses three key challenges: adapting DSAs 1) to overall SDG spending needs, 2) to meet urgent environmental crises, including climate change, nature and biodiversity collapse, and the rising incidence of natural disasters, and 3) to meet social crises produced by rising inequality and poverty, as well as pandemics. Mindful of the need for feasible and immediately actionable recommendations, the study has been based on close consultation with civil society experts and representatives of governments and international organizations
Find the webpage for the "Debt Sustainability Assessments and their Role in the Global Financial Architecture" series here.
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June 07, 2024
New York State Council of Churches, Jubilee USA Network, Oxfam and Partners In Health Issue Statement for Assembly to Pass and Governor to Sign "Champerty" Legislation and Urge Legislature to Pass Stronger Actions
A Senate bill (S5623) aimed at curbing predatory hedge fund behavior passed the New York Senate and is awaiting a vote in the Assembly (A5290) in order to head to Governor Kathy Hochul's desk to be signed into law.
"This legislation should become New York law as it addresses some of the ways that several hedge funds take advantage of developing countries," stated Eric LeCompte the Executive Director of Jubilee USA Network, an organization that works on debt and development policies. "This legislation is a step in the right direction. The legislature will need to take more comprehensive action to deal with all of the negative ways that New York's debt laws harm developing countries."
Advocates argue that more action is needed to improve New York laws that govern more than 50% of the world's private sector loans for countries.
The New York State Council of Churches, Jubilee USA Network, Oxfam and Partners In Health issue the following statement:
Thanks to Senator Krueger and Assemblymember Gonzalez-Rojas, their “champerty” bill (S5623/A5290) represents progress in limiting some of the worst, predatory behavior of the "vulture" hedge funds. As the bill (S5623) passed the Senate, the Assembly should pass the companion bill (A5290) and Governor Hochul should sign this legislation into law immediately.
Most effectively and importantly, the legislation reduces New York’s punitive prejudgment interest rate to a better level and places obstacles in the way of the most predatory speculators suing debtor countries in New York courts.
While this legislation is progress and may help curtail some predatory behavior, it does not deal with the greater concern for New Yorkers and developing countries of dealing with bad faith actors and hold-out behavior.
We support this champerty bill (S5623/A5290) and emphasize the importance of additional legislative action to address the larger issues where New York law harms developing economies. A critical portion of champerty that would have addressed the larger problem of hold-out behavior and bad faith actors was removed under pressure from creditors.
Billions of people will suffer because creditors removed the good faith provision. The removed language would have ensured that all private creditors would be required to cooperate in qualified restructurings in good faith. Without this language, we lack protections for New York courts, New York taxpayers, poor countries, and official creditors like the United States government.
Legislators in New York have compelling public interest to pass additional legislation that can rectify the power imbalance in sovereign debt restructurings and can help solve these larger problems. While we celebrate progress and this victory with the Senate passage, New York legislators must continue their work to enact further comprehensive reforms such as those included in the Sovereign Debt Stability Act (S5542A/A2970) to ensure that all private creditors governed under New York laws operate responsibly.
New York State Council of Churches
Jubilee USA Network
Oxfam
Partners In Health
Read the Statement on the New York Senate Passage of the "Champerty" Bill (S5623/A5290) here.Find the "Champerty" bill here.View Jubilee USA's Sovereign Debt Stability Act (S5542A/A2970) webpage here.
Find the Sovereign Debt Stability Act bill here.
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June 06, 2024
The National Catholic Reporter quotes Eric LeCompte on the Vatican Jubilee conference, Jubilee 2025 and the link between debt and climate change in the developing world. Read an excerpt below, or the full article here.
Ahead of 2025 Jubilee, Pope Francis rallies global finance heads to back debt relief
By Chris White
Eric LeCompte, the leader of Jubilee USA, a network of religious and development groups that advocates for international debt relief, described the pope's remarks as "powerful and forceful."
LeCompte, who attended the Vatican conference, told the National Catholic Reporter that "secular institutions are aware that 2025 is a Jubilee Year" and are interested in using it to push new policies to offer a better global financial model.
"Debt can no longer be disconnected from climate change and mitigation and adaptation," said LeCompte, who believes that the pope has always understood this to be the case, most evidenced by his landmark 2015 environment encyclical, Laudato Si'.
"The north really owes a debt to the south because we took all of their resources, fueled industrialization, created the climate change that the south no longer has the resources to deal with," he said. "We took from them and now we owe them a debt to be able to deal with climate mitigation and adaptation."
Read more here.
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June 05, 2024
The Detroit Catholic quotes Eric LeCompte on the concept of "jubilee", the progress made as a result of the last Jubilee year, 2000 and the issues facing developing countries as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Read an excerpt below, or the full article here.
Debt relief: Biblical jubilee concern is focus of Holy Year 2025, too
By Cindy Wooden
Eric LeCompte, executive director of Jubilee USA Network, an alliance of faith-based development and debt-relief advocacy organizations, was one of the speakers at the Vatican meeting.
Speaking to Catholic News Service ahead of the gathering, he said that in the Scriptures a jubilee "is about a continuing process to address inequities, a continuing process that protects all of us from having too much or too little."
Thanks to St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and all the religious and civic partners who came together to push for debt relief in the early 2000s, he said, the foundation was laid "for $130 billion in debt relief for developing countries; 55 million kids in Africa, who never would have seen the inside of a classroom, are going to school. We also changed how aid works, how accountability works. And we moved forward some very significant anti-corruption policies."
But then the pandemic struck.
As governments struggle to pay their debts, decades of progress in development have stalled or even been rolled back, poverty rates among women and children around the world are soaring, unemployment is high in the developing world and price increases -- especially for food and fuel -- are creating hardships even in the wealthiest countries. And all of that pushes migration.
Read more here.
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May 22, 2024
Jubilee USA partnered with Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung New York to publish How Transparency Makes Debt Sustainability Analyses a Trusted and Effective Tool, by Gail Hurley
The paper was the second to launch as part of a series that gathered practitioners to write on the theme "Debt Sustainability Assessments and their Role in the Global Financial Architecture." The papers will be chapters in a report to appear later in the summer.
How Transparency Makes Debt Sustainability Analyses a Trusted and Effective Tool, by Gail Hurley
A new study by Gail Hurley examines the transparency of DSAs across three key pillars: public disclosure, data and methodology openness, and engagement processes. Despite recent improvements, Hurley finds that qualitative aspects of transparency are lacking, with differences in disclosure regimes for low-income and market-access countries and limited access to information during debt distress. The paper emphasizes the importance of improved DSA transparency for driving progress, building trust, and informing better policies. It offers recommendations for enhancing transparency and calls for wider efforts across the borrowing cycle, including the production of DSAs by independent entities to alleviate concerns about impartiality.
Find the webpage for the "Debt Sustainability Assessments and their Role in the Global Financial Architecture" series here.
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May 22, 2024
Jubilee USA partnered with Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung New York to publish An appraisal of debt sustainability analyses amid multiple crises, by Sherillyn Raga
The paper was the first to launch as part of a series that gathered practitioners to write on the theme "Debt Sustainability Assessments and their Role in the Global Financial Architecture." The papers will be chapters in a report to appear later in the summer.
An appraisal of debt sustainability analyses amid multiple crises, by Sherillyn Raga
In an era of high debts and more shocks, should debt sustainability analyses change to adapt? A new study by Sherillyn Raga proposes four ways it can. One is by correcting the IMF’s over-optimistic growth and public debt forecasts for low-income countries, which underestimate the impact of overlapping shocks. The second is by better incorporating the impact of fiscal policy on baseline projections. The third is to produce a stress-test scenario for large shocks to trigger early action and prevent debt distress. Finally, when judgment rather than objective signals guide policy advice to countries, the reasoning needs to be clearly documented.
Find the webpage for the "Debt Sustainability Assessments and their Role in the Global Financial Architecture" series here.
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May 21, 2024
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May 20, 2024
Reuters and Yahoo News quote Eric LeCompte on Kenya's President Ruto's state visit with President Biden. Read an excerpt below, or the full article here.
Biden, Kenya's Ruto to discuss Kenyan debt relief this week
By Andrea Shalal, Trevor Hunnicutt and Steve Holland
Eric LeCompte, executive director of Jubilee USA Network, an interfaith alliance of religious, development and advocacy organizations, said the Ruto visit would send important signals about U.S. policy toward the African continent.
"When Ruto speaks, he's really speaking for Africa. And given that President Biden hasn't had the chance to visit Africa yet, this meeting is not only about Kenya, it's really about sub-Saharan Africa as a whole," LeCompte said.
At a meeting Ruto hosted last month, African leaders called for rich countries to commit record contributions to the World Bank's International Development Association, a low-interest facility that developing nations rely on to help fund their development and combat climate change.
Read more here.
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April 27, 2024
IDN-InDepthNews mentions Jubilee USA and Africa Faith Leaders' statement on the IDA Heads of State Summit in Nairobi. Read an excerpt below, or the full article here.
Interfaith Organisations Urge Tripling the Size of Funds for Low-Income Countries
By Devendra Kamarajan
Islamic Relief fund, the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC) – CETA, Caritas Africa, and Jubilee USA Network want to put people at the centre of reforms. IDA investments can only support strong recoveries and reduce debt vulnerability when they have behind strong societal belief on their benefits, and scrutiny of their use and results.
“IDA should open more avenues for feedback and learning from those most affected by its policies and set incentives for country-level, bottom-up processes for citizen participation in transformed instruments for lending,” the statement stressed.
Read more here.
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April 26, 2024
Religious leaders from Islamic Relief, The All Africa Conference of Churches (ACC) - CETA, Caritas Africa and Jubilee USA Network issued a statement urging world leaders to promote a tripling of IDA financing by 2030, with a significant scaling up in IDA21; enabling IDA to contribute to debt sustainability in borrower countries and putting people at the center of reforms as the International Development Association (IDA) Summit commences in Nairobi, Kenya.
Read the statement here.
Read the press release on the statement here.
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