Eric LeCompte, Jubilee USA Network's Executive Director, was recently featured in US Catholic, discussing Jubilee's scriptural roots, the impact of Jubilee 2000 and the US role in global debt relief. Read an excerpt below or the full article here.

What does the Jubilee have to do with debt justice?

During the Jubilee Year of Hope, activists across the globe are reviving an ancient vision of debt forgiveness.

By: Cassidy Klein

"Today, 3.3 billion people live in countries that spend more servicing their debts than on health care, education, and other social services combined. “Debt relief is one of the most accountable forms of aid,” LeCompte says. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, LeCompte says, the debt crisis is becoming worse in developing countries. “[During the pandemic], we saw hundreds of millions of people, mostly women and children, get pushed into poverty,” he says.

After the 2008 financial crisis, private creditors such as BlackRock began frequently lending to countries in the global South. The IMF and World Bank are multilaterals, meaning they have some level of transparency around lending, but private creditors do not. About half of these private creditors are regulated by the state of New York, and the other half are regulated by the United Kingdom. “The UK and the state of New York are uniquely responsible for the rules around which private creditors lend to whole countries,” Dettloff says.

Today, more than 50 percent of external debt in many developing countries is held by private creditors, private firms, and corporations, “including some very challenging groups, the so-called vulture funds or predatory hedge funds,” LeCompte says. The United States also has a significant role among multilateral lenders such as the IMF. The United States is the largest shareholder in the IMF—which Jubilee USA considers the most powerful institution after the White House, LeCompte says—so it gets the most votes and makes a lot of decisions around debt and the international financial system.

Jubilee USA is involved in campaigning and working on policies around debt cancelation, including legislation in New York. This year, Debt for Climate has held rallies at the IMF and World Bank, as well as at private vendors such as BlackRock in New York, bringing the words and stories from people in the global South to these centers of power."