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A New Wave of Water Privatisation in Indonesia
1 January 2018 - by Irfan Zamzami
The central government of Indonesia has repeatedly announced its intention to universalise access to clean water by 2019. To achieve this, an estimated 27 million new connections are needed, with a major investment gap of IDR 274.8 trillion (US$20.8 billion). And most of the time, as clearly (...) -
The Bamako Seminar, The CADTM network reinforces the struggle against illegitimate debt !
27 December 2017 - by Nathan Legrand, Fatima Zahra El Beghiti
The CADTM International network delegations met in Bamako, Mali, from 15 to 25 November 2017 to follow several political training and coordination activities. Indeed the third “women, debt and microcredit” seminar, the annual CADTM training session, was held at the same time and in the same (...) -
The revival of the Commonwealth: an opportunity for further exploitation or a time to correct past wrongs?
22 December 2017 - by Mary Serumaga
The Origins of the Commonwealth ‘Commonwealth’ is a word being heard with increasing frequency in the post-Brexit era. It had always been used to refer to the British Empire – first to Australia in the 1890s and later to other territories. From the record of the Colonial Affairs debate of 1939, (...) -
How the Bank’s push for microcredit failed the poor
19 December 2017 - by Milford Bateman
Popularised in the 1980s by the work of future (in 2006) Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Muhammad Yunus, the microcredit model was seen as the most awe-inspiring local economic development model of all time. The disbursement of a simple microloan to the poor was seen as pure genius: it allowed (...) -
Debt sustainability review: Tinkering around the edges while crises loom
19 December 2017 - by Tim Jones, Mark Perera
Under the joint Debt Sustainability Framework (DSF) of the World Bank and IMF (Bretton Woods Institutions or BWIs), regular assessments of the risk of external debt distress are conducted for all countries that are eligible to borrow from either institutions’ concessional lending funds (the (...) -
Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Least Developed Countries (LDCs)
18 December 2017 - by Sudhir Shrestha
When Belt and Road Forum (BRF) was held on May 14-15, 2017 in Beijing, four Least Developed Countries (LDCs), namely Cambodia, Ethiopia, Laos and Myanmar, sent their highest level of delegation as their support to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) envisioned by China. Afghanistan, Bangladesh (...) -
The Odious Iraqi Debt
12 December 2017 - by Eric Toussaint
This article, originally written towards the end of 2003, is now published on our website for the first time in English. The odious Iraqi debt is still under-documented today, though it is highly relevant in our research and our proposals against all illegitimate, illegal, odious and (...) -
The case for repudiation of Uganda’s public debt
8 December 2017 - by Mary Serumaga
Uganda is in imminent danger of defaulting on its debt repayment obligations. The Auditor General notes in 2017 that interest payments on the public debt exceeded legal limits (15% of the annual budget) and are likely to be unsustainable going forward. What will follow will be attempts by (...) -
Hunger, Foreign Debt and Uganda’s Fairytale Budgets
29 November 2017 - by Mary Serumaga
An abiding image of Uganda in April 2017 is of a group of elderly people squatting around an anthill, men and women, patting it with bunches of greenery to coax the termites out. They then pluck up the termites and eat them, not as the seasonal delicacy usually caught by young people on moonlit (...) -
Final declaration of the Bamako “Women, Debt and Microcredit” seminar
29 November 2017 - by CADTM International
We, women of the CADTM Africa network, from Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Guinea, Conakry, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Congo Democratic Republic, Republic of Congo, Senegal, Togo, as well as Argentina have met for the 3rd session of the seminar “Women, Debt and Microcredit” in (...) -
Ready for the next storm? Debt (crisis) management discussed at the UNCTAD and Paris Club
28 November 2017 - by Bodo Ellmers
The number of poor countries that are in debt crisis is increasing rapidly, as is the share of public revenue that southern governments need to divert from essential services to pay down debts. The international community is awaiting the storm with remarkable silence: only peacemeal steps have (...) -
We saw Puerto Rico’s struggle to survive
27 November 2017 - by Monique Dols, Lance Selfa
The federal government in Washington and local government agencies in Puerto Rico are eager to project the appearance of the island returning to a pre-Hurricane Maria status quo. But millions of Puerto Ricans know better. SocialistWorker.org contributors Monique Dols and Lance Selfa traveled to (...) -
The bullet train project in India: a story of white elephant and public debt
27 November 2017 - by Sushovan Dhar
We are a happy nation waiting to ride the bullet train... The Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Rail (MAHSR), connecting these major metropolis in western India, is soon to be built with Japanese finance and assistance. The Japanese PM Shinzo Abe and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi jointly (...) -
Farmers storm India’s national capital, demanding freedom from debt and better price for their produce
24 November 2017 - by La Via Campesina
Several thousand small-holder farmers from across India held a massive demonstration in New Delhi, from 20-21 November to draw attention to the acute agrarian distress plaguing the countryside and seeking immediate intervention by the Union Government. Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha and South (...) -
Latin America: 200 years of the infernal cycle of debt
23 November 2017 - by Eric Toussaint, Marie Charrel
Eric Toussaint, of the CADTM (Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt), explains the difficulties encountered by States overly dependent on raw materials. With a PhD in Political Science and speaking for CADTM international, Eric Toussaint has just published Le Systeme dette, (...) -
Zimbabwe witnessing an elite transition as economic meltdown looms
20 November 2017 - by Patrick Bond
In Harare, Bulawayo and smaller Zimbabwean cities, hundreds of thousands of citizens joyfully took to the streets on Saturday, November 18, approving a Zimbabwe Defence Force (ZDF) military semi-coup that resolves a long-simmering faction fight within the ruling party and ends the extraordinary (...) -
Brazil: the debt dilemma
16 November 2017 - by Michael Roberts
Brazil faces a presidential election in October 2018. This will offer a new benchmark for which way Brazilian politics and the economy will go. Will a coalition of pro-big business parties and a president win or will a coalition led by the Workers party return to power under a leftist (...) -
Haiti: From trafficking to debt
11 November 2017 - by Jérôme Duval
This Caribbean country is not in debt, it is a creditor. It is France which owes it money. Explanation by Jerome Duval, of CADTM. Translated by Jenny Bright. Poverty in colonised countries has greatly increased due to a transfer of debt: the debts incurred by the colonial powers to the World (...) -
Punitive Neoliberalism and Financial Melancholia in Puerto Rico
6 November 2017 - by Rafael Bernabe
BEFORE HURRICANE MARIA smashed into Puerto Rico with devastating force, the previous Hurricane Irma caused relatively manageable damage compared to its horrific impact in much of the Caribbean. Even so, the island’s electrical grid — before Maria utterly destroyed it — had already suffered outages (...) -
Sri Lanka: Debt drives Jaffna mom, children to death
28 October 2017 - by Meera Srinivasan
Just as mounting household debt in Sri Lanka’s war-affected region began drawing national attention, a young mother in Jaffna, said to be heavily indebted, consumed poison along with her three children and died on Friday. Local media reports said the woman added poison to ice cream and fed her (...) -
Campaign improves IMF debt assessments, but risk of crises continues to increase
20 October 2017 - by Tim Jones
The IMF and World Bank have agreed some positive changes to their system for monitoring debts of impoverished countries, though some large issues have been ignored. The system, known as the Debt Sustainability Framework, is important as it directly impacts on amounts of lending by the World (...) -
Hidden debts contribute to crisis in Congo
18 October 2017 - by Jubilee Debt Campaign
The IMF has reported that the Republic of Congo’s debt is higher than previously thought, but has not shown by how much or who the hidden debt is owed to. The Fund and Congo are in discussion on a bailout and austerity programme. In a March 2017 press release the IMF said the Congo’s government (...) -
Puerto Rico: Some Lessons of the Hurricane
6 October 2017 - by Rafael Bernabe
Crises raise new, sharp problems that unveil and accentuate both the admirable and the negative aspects of the societies they affect. They also pose new tasks and offer new perspectives on already established plans. The case of Puerto Rico and the effect and response to the strike by Hurricane (...) -
A legacy of liberalisation in Sri Lanka
4 October 2017 - by B. Skanthakumar
The Sri Lankan government recently released its ‘Vision 2025’ manifesto, heralding a new wave of economic reforms. Its timing coincided with the 40th anniversary of the island’s embrace of deregulation, trade liberalisation, and privatisation ahead of the rest of South Asia. While the current (...) -
Puerto Rico: Belonging to, But Not Part of
1 October 2017 - by Ed Morales
The Trump administration’s delay in sending real aid to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria is a distasteful display of colonialist racism. But it’s par for the course: our citizenship has always been second-class. “We’re American citizens. How can Trump turn his back on us?” This is one of the (...)
CADTM
COMMITTEE FOR THE ABOLITION OF ILLEGITIMATE DEBT
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