News
The All Africa Conference of Churches and national councils of churches throughout Africa were involved.
The World Council of Churches has long promoted the New International Financial and Economic Architecture initiative, and has been working with many groups to organise a Global Ecumenical Debt Jubilee Campaign in 2025.
The hope is to replicate a Jubilee 2000 campaign which led to the cancellation of more than $100 billion of debt owed by 35 of the poorest countriesAfrican countries. This time, the campaign will be linked with climate justice, calling for debt cancellation as reparation for the climate and broader ecological debt owed to countries in the global South.
In their statement, released 19 July, the African religious leaders said: “Our countries … face again agonizing choices between spending and investing on their people and paying their creditors.”
They noted that, in 2024 alone, Africa will spend $90 billion servicing public debt. “Yet, the average African country’s combined spending on health, education and social protection is two-thirds of their debt payments,” the statement reads.
The religious leaders recalled the work of faith communities 25 years ago during the Jubilee 2000 year which led to the largest ever collective debt relief initiative.
Since 2010, African countries’ interest payments more than doubled, as a percentage of their revenue. At the same time, their combined spending on health, education, social protection and climate amount to two-thirds of debt payments.
The faith leader statement called for responsible lending and borrowing principles, debt contract clauses that share climate and other risks, and additional sources of finance that do not create debt in order to prevent new high indebtedness cycles.
