25 years ago, I took part in what would become the world’s largest petition, totalling 24.1 million (!) signatures for debt cancellation – Jubilee 2000. The Jubilee demand was simple: Cancel all unsustainable debts by the year 2000 through a fair and transparent process. The result: over US$ 100 billion in debt cancellation and, for almost 40 countries, a resolution to a debt crisis that had lasted since 1982.

The Jubilee 2000 campaign was a movement started in 1994 in the UK based on the biblical idea of Jubilee. This quickly spread across the globe, and in 1999 global south campaigners gathered under the separate umbrella of Jubilee South. Jubilee 2000 made global headlines in 1998 during during the G8 summit in Birmingham in the UK when 70,000 activists formed a human chain around the summit. “Don’t owe won’t pay” - was the call of Jubilee South. They were not asking for aid, but to remove the boot of debt. There was a hole in the bucket and G8 and European governments were holding the drill. We needed to change the system!

Ice bathing for debt cancellation

In Norway, my friends and I collected signatures on the street (every weekend), on trains and on mountain tops. We organised concerts and marches, stunts like ice bathing - this always makes the national news. We laughed at the ridiculous size of the debt and held a funeral procession outside parliament burying a dictator with his odious debt. A personal highlight was discussing structural adjustment programs for 45 minutes dressed up as Darth Vader. In many other countries, both in the global south and global north, grassroots collectives, students’ groups, faith based organisations, trade unions, NGOs working on development and many more joined the Jubilee 2000. I and most other activists were not initially interested in aid or development. We simply found it so unfair that entire countries were kept in debt bondage and their people were made responsible for debt they did not incur, know about or benefited from.

On the streets

Just as the global campaign had Bono and the Pope, we had the support of Norwegian celebrities (sometimes calling the landline at my student dorm) and the support of every political youth party. We took part in big mobilisations – 50 000 in Cologne in 1999, 300,000 in Genoa in 2001 and there were many more. Tens of thousands mobilised in Prague and Washington in 2000 back to back to the IMF and World Bank meetings. In Norway we had no G8 meetings, so we had to make do with what we got, a World Bank research conference. We did not hesitate - 10,000 people gathered in the streets of Oslo in protest. In Barcelona the previous year The World Bank had to cancel the same conference. 30 000 people went ahead and protested anyway.

The Jubilee campaign was an unprecedented mobilisation challenging neoliberalism and the Washington Consensus. The spread of the internet and mass travel had opened the world and led to a time of great international solidarity causing some of the biggest mobilisations the world had ever seen. Western politicians and governments had no choice but to join.  

Filling the leaky bucket

The debt cancellation of 2000 and 2005 refilled the bucket, but did not plug the hole. The Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC-initiative) was agreed in 1998 and expanded in 1999, and was then followed by the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) in 2005. It cancelled bilateral and multilateral debts of the poorest most indebted countries, reducing debts to a sustainable level which made it possible for governments to provide health, education and services for a generation. No small feat! But, we failed to get binding rules for responsible lending and borrowing, debt transparency and crucially a multilateral sovereign debt resolution mechanism, which could have prevented a new debt crisis and stopped the accumulation of unsustainable and illegitimate debt. 

Turn Debt into Hope

25 years later debt is back on activists’ minds. There’s another debt crisis, and a call for another Jubilee campaign. Lower-income country debt payments are at their highest level in 30 years. The reasons are not that different – borrowing during a time of low interest rates followed by external shocks, climate emergency and other catastrophes including Covid-19, high interest rates and a strong dollar. People are once again paying dearly for the lack of a fair international debt architecture. 

This year offers the opportunity to turn it around. The Financing for Development (FfD) Summit in Sevilla could be a sea change in how we deal with sovereign debt. It is an opportunity to redefine relations between creditor and borrower countries and shore up multilateralism at a time of growing international mistrust. African countries, Small Island Developìng States and countries like Pakistan or Brazil and civil society organisations are calling for the UN to have a bigger role in defining rules for debt restructuring through establishing a UN Framework Convention on Sovereign Debt. Most creditors are so far against this proposal – as always, it’s a question of power. It took 25 years to resolve the last debt crisis on the back of massive mobilisations. We must do it faster and better this time. 

For me then, it’s time to air out my old t-shirts, whistles and again join the call for a Jubilee to Turn Debt into Hope and collect signatures for the Jubilee 2025 petition. This week is the first of many Jubilee actions – The Relay of Hope – sending a virtual candle around the world for debt cancellation. Next up is The Global Days of Action 27-29 June before the FfD conference in Sevilla. See also our Jubilee toolkit. Across Europe, we have also launched a campaign for an  Era of Justice. Because this is what we need. Let’s make 2025 the start for a new generation of activists and for global solidarity. 

Sign the petition