******DEBT CANCELLATION FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ******

MORE DEBT, MORE AIDS

DEMANDS:

The Treasury Secretary should advocate, and instruct the U.S. executive directors to the institutions to use voice and vote to advocate, that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, using their own resources, cancel the debts owed them by the world's poorest countries. Congress should condition new financing for the two institutions on their prior use of existing resources to cancel poor country debts. CONTACT: Treasury Secretary.
The Treasury Secretary should advocate that IMF and World Bank must abandon the imposition of structural adjustment programs. The Treasury Secretary should instruct the U.S. executive directors to vote against any loan or other program that includes structural adjustment or sectoral adjustment conditionalities. CONTACT: Treasury Secretary.
The Treasury Secretary must carry out [his] legal obligation to instruct the executive directors to vote against any loan or other program that includes user fees for basic healthcare or education, and to report to the U.S. Congress on any such program. CONTACT: Treasury Secretary.
ACT NOW:
Contact Department of the Treasury
Lawrence H. Summers, Secretary Treasury
1500 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20220
Washington, DC 20220
Phone 202-622-1100
Fax 202-622-0073


THE VICIOUS CYCLE

FACT: Poor countries will never pay off existing debt. Failure to cancel their debts leaves them in a vicious cycle where they must continually cut domestic spending and borrow more from abroad to meet payments on past debts.
FACT: Structural adjustment programs (including privatization, cuts in government spending and subsidies, and orienting economies to promote exports) have been an unmitigated disaster. In 1999 alone, these programs cost poor countries an estimated 2 trillion dollars in economic output.
FACT: User fees for primary healthcare services deny access to care and preventive treatment for the poor, leading to the spread of unnecessary and preventable death and disease. They leave people with HIV/AIDS unable to get even basic health care, and undermine efforts to treat STDs, which increase the risk of HIV infection.
FACT: Current plans to reduce the debt owed by developing countries do little to alleviate the real burden of this debt. The U.S. government proposed plan for debt relief generally suggests writing off the part of debt that is already not being paid. This meaningless debt relief leaves most developing countries paying the same amount they do now, as these plans do not erase all the debt.
HEALTH CARE SUFFERS
FACT: Debt payments for loan-strapped countries are nearly three times the amount spent on healthcare. Per capita spending is $22 on debt, $14 on education and $8 on healthcare.
FACT: By increasing migrant labor and displacing the rural sector, structural adjustment programs cause social disruption that fuels the AIDS epidemic.
FACT: When the World Bank mandated that Kenya impose charges of U.S.$2.15 for STD clinic services, attendance fell by up to 60 percent.
FACT: In Papua, New Guinea, the introduction of user fees led to a 30 percent decline in outpatient visits.
FACT: The Meltzer Commission, a bipartisan Congressional commission, has unanimously called for the World Bank and IMF to use their resources to entirely cancel debt in poor countries.
FACT: The U.S. Congress recently passed legislation requiring the U.S. government to oppose IMF/World Bank plans to oppose user fees for basic health care.


QUESTIONS AND ANSWERRS

The IMF, the World Bank and the HIV/AIDS Crisis
How does Third World debt affect health care and HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention?

In two destructive ways: First, governments with overwhelming foreign debt payment obligations must cut back on what they might otherwise allocate to the healthcare sector, including funds that may be used for HIV/AIDS prevention -- condoms, HIV testing, posters, STD treatment, etc. They are utterly unable to address the challenge of HIV/AIDS treatment. Secon