ENI – People in the poorest countries are being forced into poverty by having to repay hundreds of millions of dollars of illegitimate loans from wealthy Western countries to greedy dictators, an international meeting has heard.
“They have seen how scarce public revenue is diverted to debt service obligations and away from social welfare and infrastructure investment… [and] observed the ways in which the lives of successive generations of children can be mortgaged to the greed of a dictator,” said Rev. Ishmael Noko, general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation.
Speaking at a symposium in Oslo on debt, Noko noted that lenders who offer loans under conditions that do not guarantee democratic accountability, “should bear the risks of their decision, and should not be entitled to 'bailouts' from international financial institutions.”
Representatives of governments, churches and their partner agencies, United Nation bodies, civil society organizations and legal experts were among participants at the symposium jointly organized by the Lutheran World Federation, the Church of Sweden and Norwegian Church Aid, in October.
