2023: A more just world is still possible
#PolyCrisis #AidEffectiveness #PublicServices #Ghana #DebtJustice
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2023: A more just world is still possible
We have entered 2023 with our eyes wide open: we must act quickly yet carefully to tackle the causes of the polycrisis. There are several well-known quotes about crisis and opportunity being both sides of the same coin. And there are several opportunities for 2023 to go down in history, not as the preamble for disaster, but as the portal to a more just world.
Read the analysis by Eurodad director Jean Saldanha here.
News & analysis
GPEDC summit: New monitoring framework gives hope for better development cooperation
Last month, the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC) - a broad and high-level association of governments and organisations tasked with ensuring development cooperation works - hosted its latest summit. The stakes could not have been higher as the world enters 2023.
Demystifying Bretton Woods institutions’ rhetoric on public services
Drawing on the IMF and World Bank’s response to the multiple crises triggered by the pandemic, this journal article shows that there is a discourse-practice disjuncture in the Bretton Woods institutions' approach to public services as they continue to favour austerity and market-oriented solutions for the delivery of public services. The article seeks to demystify the institutions' rhetoric and demands the adoption of a different way of understanding public services.
Ghana needs debt cancellation, and is right to default until creditors agree
by Debt Justice
Debt Justice, Eurodad and many other CSOs have issued a statement supporting the government of Ghana in seeking to restructure its external debt. The statement also decries the failure to heed CSOs' heightened warnings on the elevated vulnerability risks of unsustainable debt for Ghana and many other African countries amid the grossly insufficient measures taken by governments and international creditors.
Ghosh, Piketty and Varoufakis among 182 experts calling for Sri Lanka debt cancellation
by Debt Justice
182 economists and development experts have called for debt cancellation for Sri Lanka to help it out of its current economic crisis. In a statement, the signatories – including Jayati Ghosh, Thomas Piketty, Dani Rodrik, Ravi Kanbur, Yannis Varoufakis and Ha-Joon Chang – call for debt cancellation by all external creditors and measures to stem the illicit outflow of capital from the country.
Reports
A new international debt sustainability crisis : context, perspectives and recommendations
by French Platform on Debt and Development Platform (PFDD)
Rich countries, which concentrate the vast majority of the world’s wealth, bear a heavy responsibility for the accumulation of unsustainable debt in the global south. This situation is worsened by the drastic economic, political and financial conditionalities imposed by the creditor countries and the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) on their debtors. Thus, in the absence of any transparent criteria for debt cancellation, the fate of these countries is left to the goodwill and arbitrary conditions of their creditors.
Inequality kills. The unparalleled action needed to combat unprecedented inequality in the wake of COVID-19
by Oxfam International
The wealth of the world’s 10 richest men has doubled since the pandemic began. The incomes of 99% of humanity are worse off because of Covid-19. Widening economic, gender, and racial inequalities—as well as the inequality that exists between countries—are tearing our world apart. But we can radically redesign our economies to be centered on equality. If we are courageous and listen to the movements demanding change, we can create an economy in which nobody lives in poverty, nor with unimaginable billionaire wealth—in which inequality no longer kills.
Useful resources
Illustrated Guide to Inflation, Monetary Policy and Human Rights
by Institute of Socioeconomic Studies
What is Monetary Policy and what does it have to do with human rights? What is the role of the Central Bank in our lives? Are there no better solutions for controlling inflation than raising interest rates? The answers to these and other questions, about the impact of economic measures on the lives of Brazilians, can be found in the pages of the “Illustrated Guide to Inflation, Monetary Policy and Human Rights”.
More Austerity in 2023 Will Fuel Protests
by Isabel Ortiz and Sara Burke
A recent global report alerts of the dangers of a post-pandemic wave of austerity, far more premature and severe than the one that followed the global financial crisis a decade ago. While governments started cutting public expenditures in 2021, a tsunami of budget cuts is expected in 143 countries in 2023, which will impact more than 6.7 billion people or 85% of the world's population.
Read the article published by IPs here.
Vacancies
Debt Justice Team Intern
Eurodad | Brussels | Deadline: 31 January
Call for consultancy for evaluation of EC Umbrella 2018-2022 grant and Mid-term review of Eurodad’s 2021-2025 Strategic Plan
Eurodad | Remote/Brussels | Deadline: 31 January
Events
25 January 14:00 CET | Debt Justice's final webinar on debt information
This webinar by Debt Justice UK is the final webinar of a series on understanding and accessing debt information. It will explain other sources of information on public debt including bonds, bond prospectuses, the Paris Club, OECD loan registry, loans from China database and national governments. For more information, contact Ilaria Crotti at [email protected].
Join the webinar via Zoom. (Passcode: 059629)
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This newsletter has been produced with co-funding from the European Union, Bread for the World and Norad. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of Eurodad and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the funders. |
