World Council of Churches Quotes Eric LeCompte on Civil Society Policy Forum

World Council of Churches Quotes Eric LeCompte on faith-based organizational meetings with the IMF and World Bank to discuss global debt reductions. Read an excerpt below, and click here for the full story.

As debt piles onto the backs of poor countries, Christian community calls for relief

Jeronim Zettelmeyer, deputy director of the International Monetary Fund’s Strategy, Policy and Review Department, shared current efforts to respond to the debt crisis. At the same time, he said civil society organisations should “put pressure on their own domestic authorities” as the problem does not only lie with the international financial architecture. 

Marcello Estevao, global director of the World Bank’s Macroeconomics, Trade and Investment Global Practice said that their “goal is to enlarge the breathing space for poor countries” in a time of economic crisis.

Eric LeCompte, executive director of Jubilee USA, cited the lack of private sector participation and inadequate coverage of middle-income indebted countries as key challenges to current initiatives to tackle debt. Moving forward, “there is a need to expand debt relief to middle income countries.”

 

Read the full article here.