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Part of the Week of Global Action vs Debt & IFIs Debts that were used for harmful projects or to impose harmful policies are illegitimate. And illegitimate debt has been a major factor to the escalation of the climate crisis. International Financial Institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF, bear a significant part of the responsibility for illegitimate debt and harmful debt-related projects and policies.
Every year, hundreds of millions of dollars of loans are used to finance projects that are environmentally destructive and greatly exacerbate climate change. These include as oil, coal and gas and other extractive industries, infrastructure projects that result in massive deforestation such as large-scale dams, road development in tropical forests, and agrofuel/biofuel production. While the loans are extended to governments and are being paid for by public funds, private transnational corporations are the main beneficiaries of many of the projects. The World Bank and other international financial institutions are the major lenders to projects involving fossil fuel industries. Since the signing of the Climate Convention in 1992, and even after instituting "environmental policies," the World Bank approved more than 133 financial packages to oil, coal and gas extraction projects. The total amount exceeds US$28 billion dollars. Regional development banks and export credit agencies also provide financing to these industries. The World Bank is also one of main pioneers in using loans to impose conditionalities on borrowing countries. For more than 3 decades now, international financial institutions used loans to impose policies that reinforce the concentration of wealth on elites, perpetuate the plunder of the countries of the South by northern economies and transnational corporations, keep the net flow of resources from the South to the north, and promote a “development” paradigm that is characterized by overconsumption, overproduction, dependence on fossil fuel and the pursuit of carbon-intensive growth. It is condemnable that with such a record, the World Bank is attempting to assume pre-eminent role in global financing of climate mitigation and adaptation and the promotion of "clean technology" and "clean development. The World Bank recently unveiled its Climate Investment Funds (CIFs), the concept and design of which are as fundamentally flawed as the Bank itself. We urge people’s movements, citizens groups, environmental campaigns and NGOs to observe OCTOBER 13 as Global Day of Action against Illegitimate Debt, IFIs and Climate Change. Let us together organize activities and actions to express our demands for governments and International Financial Instructions to Cancel or stop payment on all illegitimate debt. Stop financing projects and policies that exacerbate climate change. Oppose World Bank Climate Investment Funds and other climate programs under the control of the WB and other IFIs. Stop loan-financing of climate programs. Pay restitution and reparations for the ecological and historical debts owed to the South.
Signatories Jubilee South * Friends of the Earth International * JS-Asia/Pacific Movement on Debt and Development * European Network on Debt and Development (EURODAD) * Jubilee USA Network * Africa Jubilee South * JS Americas * Jubilee Debt Campaign – UK * Campagna per la Riforma della Banca Mondiale (CRBM), Italy * LDC Watch * South Asian Alliance for Poverty Eradication * Alternatives Asia * LATINDADD * Sustainable Energy & Economy Network, Institute for Policy Studies, USA * ODG Barcelona, Spain * Freedom From Debt Coalition Philippines * Indian Social Action Forum * INFID Indonesia * Daughters of Mumbi Kenya * Economic Justice Network – South Africa * Rural Reconstruction Nepal * KPI (Indonesian Women Coalition) * YTM (Yayasan Tanah Merdeka, Palu, Central Sulawesi) Indonesia * FOKER LSM Papua * Imparsial * GAPRI (the Anti-Impoverishment Movement of Indonesia) * Migrant Care Indonesia |
