Debt Relief Campaign

International debt paralyzes impoverished countries, inhibiting development as governments try in vain to keep up with interest payments on debts owed to wealthy nations like the United States and international financial institutions like the World Bank. In fact, many of these countries are paying more in debt service than they receive in aid. Sadly, this onerous and odious debt is a destructive holdover from these nations’ corrupt regimes, with the burden of repayment and the resulting sacrifices falling upon its struggling citizens.

Because debt payments often must take precedence over spending on education, health care and other basic necessities, debt cancelation can have a huge impact. Countries relieved of these crushing debt loads are finally free to invest their resources in their own citizens. To date, debt cancelation has resulted in more than doubling school enrollment in Uganda, vaccinating five hundred thousand children in Mozambique and adding three more years of schooling for Honduran children.

Since the late 1990s, AJWS has mobilized the American Jewish community to join the international call for definitive debt cancelation for some of the world’s most impoverished countries. Given that the United States has the largest share of votes in the world’s major international financial institutions, we as Americans have an important role to play in this struggle. Please join us in pursuing a brighter future for those working to free themselves from the cycle of debt.

• AJWS and members of the Jubilee USA Network sent a letter to Alex Gibbs, Executive Director of the International Monetary Fund, to recommend using excess windfall profits from the sale of gold reserves to support debt relief for countries in need.
• AJWS signed onto a position statement urging the International Monetary Fund to use all excess profits from gold sales to fund debt cancellation and /or non-debt creating assistance for poor countries.
• AJWS joined a group of religious leaders and other faith-based organizations in urging President Obama to take leadership in calling for expanded debt cancellation for impoverished countries and promoting critical reforms of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).

• Visit our Action Center and get involved.