The World Council of Churches has welcomed the initiative by the G7 industrialised nations which pledged this past weekend to write Haiti's debts off. It has also called on the IMF and others to follow suit.
Campaigners across Europe joined Haitian civil society groups today to condemn the failure of the International Monetary Fund to cancel Haiti’s debts, and the Fund’s extension of new loans to Haiti.
World Council of Churches General Secretary, the Rev Dr Olav Fykse Tveit has added his name to a growing chorus of calls from around the globe for the cancellation of quake-hit Haiti's crippling international debt.
The Jubilee Debt Campaign has urged the total cancellation of Haiti’s international debts following the recent earthquake. Two-thirds of the country's debt was cancelled last year, but Haiti still owes $641 million.
The threat of entrepreneurs in poor countries taking on too much loan debt is a growing reality, and a real threat to the rapidly expanding microfinance sector, says fair finance body Oikocredit.
The UK government came under fire today in a new report revealing that the current climate finance proposals likely to dominate the weekend’s G20 talks will increase third world debt.
Peter Selby’s groundbreaking book, Grace and Mortgage, originally published in the late 1990s in support of the millennium debt campaigns, has been reissued in relation to the current credit crunch and recession.
Churches are failing their members and communities by avoiding talking openly about money and debt, says the Evangelical Alliance, which is organising a seminar on the topic with input from Credit Action and the Church of England.
UK government Communities Secretary Hazel Blears will be the keynote speaker at a 'Life Beyond Debt' event run by the Evangelical Alliance on Thursday 5 February.
