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Bali Declaration: Asian Peoples' Movement Against ADB |
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Representative of peasants, workers, fisherman, women, human rights defenders, environmentalists, students, civil society movements who join the Asian People’s movement against ADB, gathered in Bali concurrently with the Annual Governors' Meeting of ADB which took place on 2-5 may 2009, assure that ADB will not be the answer to the current crises.
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Fixing the Legacy of Apartheid |
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Khadija Sharife | April 29, 2009
Foreign Policy In Focus
www.fpif.org
It’s still there nestled in a box as a painful keepsake: the “none
blacks” placard I stole as a toddler from the door of a café in Durban,
where my mother — who easily passes for a European — met a white friend
for coffee. “My four-year-old daughter did that for fun,” the café owner
explained. “They know not to come here.” That wasn’t strictly true: the
flapping kitchen door revealed a black woman wearing a hairnet, gloves,
and an apron: less a human being than a human resource.
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The global financial crisis: Lessons and responses from Africa |
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by Demba Moussa Dembel for Pambazuka News Weekly Forum for Social Justice in Africa
As
the international financial crisis points to the collapse of laissez
faire economics and discredits market fundamentalism, Africa and the
global South should break free from failed neoliberal policies and the
institutions that have promoted them and define their own paths to
development, writes Demba Moussa Dembele, director of the Forum for
African Alternatives.
The crisis provides fundamental lessons, says Dembele, the first being
that markets do not have self-correcting mechanisms, and that market
failures are not less costly than state failures. Secondly, "the
collapse of the neoliberal dogma is a major blow to the international
financial institutions. What is even more devastating to them is the
reversal of most of the policies they had advocated for decades in
Africa and in other ‘poor’ countries under the now discredited SAPs
(structural adjustment programmes). The IMF and the World Bank are
supporting fiscal stimulus – expansionary fiscal policies – in the
United States, Europe and Asia."
Thirdly, its clear that the state remains a central player in solving
crises caused by markets, and is not the sole cause of economic and
social problems in Africa that neoliberal policy has categorised it as.
Dembele notes that many development agencies do not have Africa’s best
interests at heart, citing failures to cancel debt and to dedicate 0.7
per cent of GDP to official development assistance budgets, along with
restricting the access of African exports to Western markets. In
contrast, US$4 trillion was made available in matter of weeks to tackle
the international financial crisis, 45 times the total aid budget of
the European Union and the USA for 2007.
Dembele calls for Africa and Africans to forget neoliberal capitalism
and explore new paths to ‘an endogenous development for and by its
people’, recommending that Africa should restore capital controls and
reject unfavourable trade liberalisation policies, as well as reversing
the privatisation of key sectors and natural resources. Likewise, the
author calls for African governments to restore the role of the state
in the development process, reclaim the debate on African development
while learning from the experiences of other countries in the global
South, and to build an alternative means for financing development
including South–South co-operation and the integration of diaspora
remittances into a coherent strategy.
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Summary of the Declaration of the Assembly of Movements struggling to overcome Debt domination |
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The Assembly of Movements struggling to overcome Debt domination during the IX World Social Forum stressed the threat of a
new debt crisis as
a result of the current crises, which are already generating a wave
of new indebtedness and worsening repayment conditions. It also
emphasized the urgent need to reject the exclusivity of the G20 and
its unacceptable proposals to strengthen the power of the IFIs and
transnationalized financial capital. The Assembly highlighted the
growing convergence among anti-debt movements in the International
South-North Campaign against Illegitimate Debt
and the historic breakthrough achieved through Ecuador's
comprehensive debt audit, the beginning of a similar audit in
Paraguay, and Ecuador's decision not to continue paying some of the
debt it claims to be illegitimate. In terms of global priorities, the
Assembly calls on all movements to join in the fight for
the non-payment of illegitimate debts and
the restoration
and reparation of historic, ecological and social debts.
The Assembly also makes a call to participate and support, in
particular: the undertaking of comprehensive
Debt Audits;
the Week
of Action against the G20, War, and Crisis (March
28 to April 4), the Peoples'
Tribunal on Ecological Debt (October
2009); and the Week
of Global Action Against Debt and IFIs(October
7 -15, 2009), including the Day
of struggle in defence of the Pachamama on
October 12. The Assembly also calls on governments and movements in
the region to put into operations the South Bank and
other alternatives that can contribute to the recovery of financial
sovereignty in the South.
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World Social Forum 2009 |
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Jubilee South will be participating in numerous activities during the coming edition of the World Social Forum in Belém, Brazil, and we invite you to join us!! Information regarding these activities can be found in the attached file, which we will attempt to keep updated as information from the WSF changes. Watch also for information about JS gatherings and a global meeting of the South-North Campaign against Illegitimate Debt.
In Belém, some of the Jubilee South delegation will be housed at the CNBB Residence, TV. Barao di Triunfo, 3161 Marco. You can also reach us via mobile in Belém at 8407-3760 or 8407-3761 (Beverly or Fabrina). From outside Belem, add +55-91 as country and city codes. Also, more info on WSF here.
download pdf
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