The Debt Trap and the interlinked Crises

12 November 2023 by Eric Toussaint , Lidy B. Nacpil , Ahilan Kadirgamar , Kris Vanslambrouck , Anuradha Chenoy

We continue to witness country after country in the Global South falling victim to the ‘debt trap’ and inability to repay foreign loans. People in these countries bear the multiple burdens of indirect taxation as governments failing to repay debts and interests to powerful governments pass the responsibility on to unwitting people through indirect taxes and cuts on subsidies for health and education that further impoverish an already oppressed mass.

This forces governments and people to depend on fossil fuels, resort to regressive social practices, and encourage displacements and migrations in search of a sustainable life. The webinar with renowned experts examined the reasons for the debt and explained how people put pressure on themselves to escape these cyclical debt and poverty traps.

Speakers:

Ahilan Kadirgamar: Senior Sociology Lecturer, University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka
Eric Toussaint: Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt (CADTM)
Lidy Nacpil: Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD), Philippines

Moderators:
Kris Vanslambrouck & Anuradha Chenoy

Author

Eric Toussaint

is a historian and political scientist who completed his Ph.D. at the universities of Paris VIII and Liège, is the spokesperson of the CADTM International, and sits on the Scientific Council of ATTAC France.
He is the author of World Bank: A Critical History, London, Pluto, 2023, Greece 2015: there was an alternative. London: Resistance Books / IIRE / CADTM, 2020 , Debt System (Haymarket books, Chicago, 2019), Bankocracy (2015); The Life and Crimes of an Exemplary Man (2014); Glance in the Rear View Mirror. Neoliberal Ideology From its Origins to the Present, Haymarket books, Chicago, 2012, etc.
See his bibliography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89ric_Toussaint
He co-authored World debt figures 2015 with Pierre Gottiniaux, Daniel Munevar and Antonio Sanabria (2015); and with Damien Millet Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank: Sixty Questions, Sixty Answers, Monthly Review Books, New York, 2010. He was the scientific coordinator of the Greek Truth Commission on Public Debt from April 2015 to November 2015.

Author

Lidy B. Nacpil

is an activist working on economic, environmental, social and gender justice issues in national, regional and global campaigns.

She is the Co-ordinator of Jubilee South – Asia Pacific Movement on Debt and Development (JSAPMDD), Co-coordinator of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ), and member of the global Coordinating Committee of the Global Alliance on Tax Justice (GATJ).

She also serves as the Convenor of the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice and Vice President of the Freedom From Debt Coalition.