174,  rue Joseph II
Bruxelles
B-1000  Belgique
Tel. 32-2 234 6810    Fax 32-2 231 1413
e-mail. aefjn@village.uunet.be
http://www.oneworld.org/aefjn/

His Excellency Giuliano Amato
Presidenza del consiglio dei Ministri
Palazzo Chigi
Piazza Colonna 370
I-00187 Roma
 
 
 
 
 

Your Excellency,
Re. : Agenda Genoa G8 Summit

As a faith based organization, representing priests and religious women and men from 39 religious congregations present in Africa and Europe, AEFJN looks to Italy’s leadership of the G8 in 2001, to bring the members of the G8 Summit of July in Genoa to heed the calls of the millions of Africans, their civil and religious leaders and their numerous civil society groups.

With interest we have read the latest version of the Italian government position paper for the G8 summit in Genoa, “Beyond Debt Relief”, to move forward and consolidate the gains of the HIPC initiative endorsed in the Cologne G8 summit of 1999 as set out by your minister of Finance.

Your Excellency, AEFJN appreciates the proposals of your government to take action to open industrial countries’ markets to poor countries’ exports especially in agriculture and low technology industries; to promote private investment through the facilitation of FDI flows and technology transfers towards the least developed countries; and to make more efficient resources channelled through the international financial institutions by creating “dedicated trust funds” to improve health and education in the least developed countries.  These proposals recognize the huge poverty issues faced by the poorest countries and they will be helpful in alleviating.

However, to our great surprise, from the position paper it seems that further debt reductions for the least developed countries will not be on the agenda as far as the Italian government is concerned.

Mister Prime Minister, figures show that since the 1999 G8 meeting at Cologne and the launching of the Enhanced Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC2), the total debt owed by the countries concerned has actually risen!  It is therefore fair to say that the efforts of the international financial institutions to provide debt reduction have been far too slow in their implementation and proved insufficient to break the spiral of indebtedness in which the 32 poorest African countries find themselves caught.

Your Excellency, it is the opinion of our members who live in Africa and Europe that unless further immediate and realistic measures of debt cancellation are taken by the international financial community, the 32 poorest countries in Africa are not given a  fair chance to integrate into the global system of economy, they will neither be able to work efficiently towards a sustainable development nor will they be able to give the attention due to the primary needs of their populations.

The priests and religious, members of AEFJN, expect from Italy’s leadership of the G8, that it will put on the agenda of the Genoa summit the issue of effective debt relief and we count on the Italian government that it will work to bring the G8 summit of Genoa to agree:

1. that creditors must stop immediately taking payments from the poorest countries that have been promised cancellation in order to make full use of the money made available  to address health and education problems.

2. on more substantial debt cancellation for the poorest countries then the IMF and the World Bank debt reduction schemes that provide for only 30% debt reduction.  Italy must lead the G8 to direct the IMF and the World Bank to use their ample reserves to write-off the debts of the poorest African countries.

3. to set in motion the creation of an international arbitration mechanism for dealing with debt and lending, a fair and transparent process to help to prevent the debt crisis from reoccurring.

Only when such debt cancellation proposals for the poorest African countries are assured, your Excellency, will the proposals of your goverment produce the effects at their fullest potential and indeed be a considerable help for these countries.

Your Excellency, as AEFJN we will monitor carefully the preparations towards the Genoa G8 summit and keep our membership in Africa and Europe informed of any developments. Counting on your cooperation, we pray with you for success in your most important service.