Ten years ago I was part of a movement called Jubilee 2000 which changed the way people think about debt. It challenged a deeply held principle ”˜that debts must always be repaid’ by showing how, in the case of many debts owed by impoverished countries, the consequences of repayments was creating nearly unimaginable suffering.
We were not calling for an act of charity, but a realisation that the economy we had created was structured in a way which was deeply unfair, exaggerating inequality and poverty in many parts of the world. We didn’t want donations, but a change in the rules of engagement.
The change in values which the Jubilee movement effected, forced decision-makers to enact policies which went someway to redressing this injustice. $125 billion of debt was wiped out, government’s were able to start spending money in ways that benefited their people.