For over twenty years, the Canadian churches have pressed for the cancellation of the debts of the world’s poorest countries. These debts push countries into an endless downward spiral of new loans taken out to repay old debts.

The ‘structural adjustment programs’ which are attached to new loans create ever deepening poverty, and strip countries of the resources needed to house, feed, and educate their peoples. Many other debts are ‘illegitimate’, for they flow from loans taken out by corrupt regimes or were not used to meet the needs of the people.

We believe that the debts owed by the poorest countries must be cancelled because they are imposing extreme hardship.

Between 1998 and 2001, Canadians joined millions of global citizens in a “Jubilee” campaign for debt cancellation. KAIROS continues the debt cancellation work of the Canadian Ecumenical Jubilee Initiative.

We invite you to take action with us as we work towards:

• 100% cancellation of debt of the poorest countries
• Assessment and cancellation of all illegitimate debts
• An end to Structural Adjustment Programs
• The replacement of the International Financial Institutions with multilateral financial institutions that respond to the development needs of the entire global community.

Sign up for our Debt Bulletin and have a look at its archives as part of our archives of key analysis and reflections from KAIROS and its Southern partners. Our page on HIV-AIDS is also connected to the question of debt, since many of the countries battling the pandemic are also facing huge debt loads and structural adjustment programs that strip away much-needed resources from basic health care, water systems, and education.