Geneva, 8 February 2010:
The World Council of Churches (WCC) has welcomed the initiative by the seven most industrialized nations (G7), which pledged this past weekend to write Haiti's debts with them off. In a letter from the WCC general secretary, the Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, the WCC also asked for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international financial institutions to follow the G7 example and make sure financial support to Haiti is "grant-based and not debt-creating".
Tveit welcomed and expressed appreciation for the G7 initiative in an 8 February letter to the finance minister of Canada, James M. Flaherty, who recently hosted the G7 meeting in Canada.
Letters of appreciation were also sent to the finance ministers of France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom and the United States. Tveit expressed hope that the G7 move will "encourage other countries and multilateral institutions to commit to the unconditional cancellation of Haiti's debts".
On 12 January Haiti's capital city Port-Au-Prince was hit by an earthquake that reportedly killed an estimated 200,000 people, injured some 250,000, and made 1.5 million homeless.
Concern over IMF loans
In regard to the IMF, Tveit shared his concern that "more loans"
from the institution will add "to Haitis burden". He regretted that the IMF has not shown "clear willingness" nor made "definitive moves yet to cancel the country's current debt".
On 20 January IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said the institution was "working with all donors to try to delete all the Haitian debt", including the IMF's latest interest-free loan of $100 million. "If we succeed and I'm sure we will succeed even this loan will turn out to be finally a grant, because all the debt will have been deleted", Strauss-Kahn said.
Since then, IMF officials have shown far less enthusiasm than their boss. On 27 January, IMF mission chief for Haiti Corinne Deléchat made debt relief dependant on a disaster needs assessment to be done in February and said debt relief can achieve "little in comparison of the needs".
On 4 February, IMF external relations director Caroline Atkinson said debt relief "is not a today issue" on the grounds that "Haiti owes the IMF no debt service now and will not for at least two years".
WCC continues to call for debt relief
In his letter to the G7 ministers Tveit reiterated the WCC call "for the immediate and full cancellation of Haiti's foreign debt as the quake-stricken country needs a broader plan to support recovery, poverty eradication and sustainable development".
He also called on international financial institutions to "take urgent measures to cancel Haitis debts" and to make sure that "all financial support to Haiti be grant-based and non-debt creating".
Tveit reiterated the commitment of the ecumenical family to Haiti's long-term needs. Churches and church-related organizations around the world have participated in relief efforts since the disaster, particularly through the ACT Alliance, a global ecumenical grouping of churches and related agencies working on emergency relief and development and a partner organization of the WCC.
Full text of the WCC letter to G7 finance ministers
WCC member churches in Haiti and ecumenical response
More information about the relief provided by the ACT Alliance
Churches in Australia support the work of ACT Alliance and partners on the ground in Haiti through the disaster appeal of Act for Peace – Give now!
Background information on Haiti's foreign debt
About the WCC: The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 349 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 560 million Christians in over 110 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, from the [Lutheran] Church of Norway. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.
