By Dakarayi Matanga
ACTIVISTS meeting on Wednesday last week at the World Social Forum in Dakar, Senegal, criticised creditors for perpetuating a system of dominance on African countries through debt.
The forum noted that scarce resources were being used to service debts at the expense of social services. This was in a continent lagging behind in meeting its commitments towards the Millennium Development Goals.
The meeting was hosted by Jubilee South, the Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt, African Forum and Network on Debt (AFRODAD) and Development and a host of other groups.
It focused on debt, under the theme, “Debt Crises and IFIs in Africa and Globally”.
Participants listened to community-based testimonies from countries such as Niger and the DRC and reflected on recommendations from the continent’s apex debt network.
According to Aboubacar Issa, the national co-ordinator of Reseau National Dette et Developpment (RNDD-Niger), debt is a system to rob Africa of its endowments. 
“Africa’s economies are primed to pay debt before all other expenditure,” he said.
“The continent’s debt has been paid seven and a half times over since the 1980s. Meanwhile, our countries do not have funding for social welfare!”
He called on all debt movements in Africa to co-operate to face this formidable challenge.
The starkest example of significant resource endowments juxtaposed to unsustainable debt and underdevelopment came from the DRC when Yvonne Ngoyi of CADTM-DRC chronicled the origins and growth of her country’s external debt.
The DRC’s debt can be traced to colonial times, as well as IFI lending in the post-colonial period.
“We demand an open and transparent audit and publication of the results,” she said.
Increasing evidence points to the fatal effects of indebtedness on Africa’s population.
In his 2009 book entitled “The Deadly Ideals of Neoliberalism”, Rick Rowden highlights the obstacles faced by activists and public health advocates campaigning for an increase in the level of public financing for health systems over the years.
These obstacles, linked to the dominant development model, which has been promoted by the IFIs in the last 30 years, are based on free markets and a reduction in government intervention.
These policies have “translated into smaller national budgets and insufficient levels of long-term public investment over many years.
“In turn this has translated directly into smaller health budgets and less money for doctors, nurses and healthcare workers.”
This significantly explains the deadly impact of HIV/Aids on sub-Saharan Africa’s populations over the past few decades.
A study recently published in the International Journal of Health Services has shown that countries that relied on loans from the International Monetary Fund were found to channel the least aid towards its intended purpose.
Borrowing countries were found to have grown their spending on health at half the speed of non-IMF borrowers.
Dr David Stuckler from Oxford University led the study with Dr Sanjay Basu at University of California San Francisco and Prof Martin McKee at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
AFRODAD warned that Africa faces a renewed debt crisis as the recent global financial crisis has affected the capacity of countries to finance debt.
Its studies show that traditional debt relief mechanisms such as the Highly Indebted Poor Country Initiative and the Multilateral Debt Reduction Initiative (MDRI) have not stopped countries from contracting new debts.
New creditors in the form of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) have further complicated the matter. Domestic debt in post MDRI countries has also risen sharply.
Tiri Mutazu of AFRODAD says that the apex group was continuously researching and promoting alternative debt workout mechanisms in response to these challenges.
For instance, they are pioneering the development of a borrowing charter with principles to root out corruption, enhance negotiating capacity of African governments with creditors and generally promote responsible borrowing, among other things.

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