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June 13, 2005
Deutsche Welle: 'Fighting Poverty Needs More Than Debt Relief
Deutsche Welle's Ute Schaeffer's analysis of the G8's decision to write off some African and Latin American nations' debt is worth considering. I agree with Schaeffer's contention that "Finance ministers of the world's leading industrialized nations and Russia (G8) were reaching for superlatives after Saturday's [June 11, 2005] decision to write off debts of 38 countries in Africa and Latin America, amounting to a whopping $55 billion.
Superlatives such as: "A historic decision," the "biggest debt relief program that the world has ever seen" and "a success for the world."
Schaeffer noted that, " Eighteen countries will immediately have their debt burdens cancelled, while 20 more are expected to profit from it later," adding "The decision is a show of strength for the G8 and yet it can at best be only a small step to achieve the millennium development goals. At the same time, Tony Blair and the British presidency of the G8 have managed to defy the doomsayers and get the first part of their ambitious "Marshall Plan for Africa" on the road: canceling out debts for the world's most impoverished countries."
See "Fighting Poverty Needs More than Debt Relief" for more of Schaeffer's views.
Posted by Munir Umrani at June 13, 2005 09:28 AM
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