Tue, 25 May 2021 at 18:30 – 20:00 BST
Register!Covid-19 exacerbated an already growing debt crisis across much of the global south. The pandemic threatens to push 150 million people into extreme poverty globally, but dozens of governments continue to spend more on their external debt than they do on healthcare.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the IMF used debt crises to enforce devastating austerity across much of Africa and Latin America through harsh “structural adjustment” programmes.
Today, however, big banks and financial corporations are the ones holding the global south to ransom. The amount that African governments owe to companies like BlackRock, HSBC and JP Morgan could vaccinate the entire population three times over. With big banks holding their AGMs and publishing their pandemic profits this month, and rich G7 governments set to discuss debt at meetings in the UK in June, this is an important time to build our movement and make our voices heard.
Join us in this webinar to hear more about why the cancellation of these payments is not just debt justice, but can also help in struggles for racial justice and climate justice. We’ll hear from speakers in the global south about how debt has impacted their communities in the past and present day, as well as from campaigners in the UK who will share how to build the pressure on big banks to cancel the debt.
Speakers:
- Gyekye Tanoh, Head of the Political Economy Unit at Third World Network-Africa and based in Kenya.
- Njoki Njehu, Director of Solidarity Africa Network in Action and the Daughters of Mumbi Resource Centre in Kenya
- Speakers from Global Justice Now and Jubilee Debt Campaign