Friends,
In the last days of 2020, we pray you and your loved ones are well.
Just in recent days and over the last year - we lost hundreds of our Jubilee USA friends, members and partners to the coronavirus. Some of us lost are jobs and struggle to pay our bills. The economic and health crises spurred by the pandemic means livelihoods continue to be lost, more friends will die and hunger spreads.
As we remember the loved ones we lost, we also lift 2020 as the most remarkable year in Jubilee USA's history.
We won multiple coronavirus and stimulus campaigns. World leaders looked to the financial crisis solutions that we created. Together, we mobilized hundreds of religious, labor, environmental, human rights groups and institutions to move forward coronavirus response campaigns to lift the poor, our livelihoods and the planet.
In recent weeks we moved the Trump Administration to support debt relief beyond the policies of other G20 countries. We continue to meet with the leads of the Biden Transition Team on our coronavirus campaigns. Thanks to you, we celebrate our most successful fundraising year on record, allowing us to hire new senior staff.
In order to sustain our COVID campaigns and new team members, your tax-deductible gift is critical now as we stop lost decades of development in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America. Your gift means we move forward our proposals to tackle increasing inequality in the United States and around the world. Your tax-deductible donation today is matched and will be doubled.
This year, your partnership and support of Jubilee USA's bipartisan, interfaith mission meant:
- We won a historic G20 debt reduction process for developing countries suffering from the corona health and economic crisis. This is the most significant debt relief and anti-corruption process we won to date. 73 poor countries can access new resources to confront the COVID crisis
- After 10 years of work, Jubilee's Corporate Transparency Act just passed Congress. Our bipartisan bill sheds light on anonymous shell companies when they shield human traffickers, steal debt relief and promote tax evasion and corruption
- 29 of the world's poorest countries saw debt cancelled through next spring and 73 developing countries can obtain debt payment relief through at least mid-2021
- Our campaigns with Puerto Rico religious leaders won a White House award of $13 billion for a total of $26 billion in disaster recovery funds, food aid for the island’s 300,000 schoolchildren and policies to reduce the island's staggering 60% child poverty rate
- In the stimulus that passed this week, we just won another $600 million for Puerto Rico child poverty reduction. The White House now supports our proposals to bring back jobs for the island
- Our stimulus package efforts promoted debt relief for poor countries, Puerto Rico disaster aid and student debt relief
- We are moving forward IMF and G20 approval of global reserve funds (Special Drawing Rights) to provide the aid that is needed for developing countries to survive and rebuild from the crisis
- Jubilee USA is promoting climate change finance solutions at the IMF, G20 and with President-elect Biden
- The US - Mexico - Canada (USMCA) trade agreement went into effect with our provisions to ensure vulnerable communities access lifesaving medicines and eliminate harmful arbitration processes
- We persuaded the White House to freeze student loan payments until end of this year
- Somalia debt relief succeeded with the White House, Congress, State Department, Treasury, IMF and World Bank
- Hundreds of thousands of newspapers and television and radio shows covered our Jubilee USA coronavirus response efforts
Because of your support, world leaders are considering Jubilee USA's proposals to change the global financial system to reduce poverty and inequality, protect our planet and prevent future financial crises.
Your tax-deductible gift today is doubled and propels our coronavirus response campaigns into 2021. Please join me and make a gift today. Whether your donation is $50, $1000 or $500 - your gift is matched, doubling our coronavirus response efforts.
In early February, at the Papal Academy of Social Sciences in Rome, we joined Pope Francis, the head of the IMF, Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz and 12 finance ministers to move forward processes to stop financial crisis and end poverty. By the last week of February, Jubilee USA was the first organization to launch coronavirus response campaigns, leading hundreds of organizations on the economic and health responses. By April, we won our first campaigns from the IMF, G20, Congress, Treasury and the White House. In June, we addressed the special session of the United Nations on our Jubilee recommendations to solve the COVID crisis. In July and November, we won another round of our coronavirus tax, debt, aid, healthcare and transparency campaigns. In December, after a 10 year fight, our Corporate Transparency Act became law and we won stimulus money for Puerto Rico.
It was a challenging, heartbreaking year – but because together we fought and we didn't give up, it's a remarkable year.
As our community remembers the lost and acts to save more lives and livelihoods into 2021 - your actions, partnership and support continue to make the difference.
Wishing you and your loved ones a blessed, safe and happy New Year,
Eric
Eric LeCompte
Executive Director
Twitter: @Eric_LeCompte
www.jubileeusa.org/support-us