After the conclusion of this year’s Group of 8 (G8) summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, civil society continues to call on leaders of the world’s wealthiest nations to keep last year’s promises to fight poverty and underdevelopment — to increase effective aid, develop more just trade relations, and deliver broader and deeper debt relief. Yet with energy security headlining the past weekend’s agenda, G8 leaders seem to have forgotten last year’s priorities, instead focusing on increasing oil production, with the world’s poor paying the price in millions of deaths from disease, famine, and environmental disasters caused by climate change, and pushing impoverished countries further into debt.

After the conclusion of this year’s Group of 8 (G8) summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, civil society continues to call on leaders of the world’s wealthiest nations to keep last year’s promises to fight poverty and underdevelopment—to increase effective aid, develop more just trade relations, and deliver broader and deeper debt relief. Yet with energy security headlining the past weekend’s agenda, G8 leaders seem to have forgotten last year’s priorities, instead focusing on increasing oil production, with the world’s poor paying the price in millions of deaths from disease, famine, and environmental disasters caused by climate change, and pushing impoverished countries further into debt.

Last year, under intense pressure from grassroots movements and civil society groups, G8 leaders cancelled the debts of 18 countries to the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and African Development Fund (ADF). Already these savings have enabled Benin to invest in rural primary health care and HIV programs, Tanzania to abolish primary school fees leading to a 66% increase in school attendance, and Mozambique to provide free immunization for children.

However, most of the world has yet to see any benefits from the G8 debt deal. Only 1 in 10 people in the developing world will benefit from the deal; the other 9 live in countries still in need of debt cancellation. People living in heavily indebted and impoverished countries like Kenya and Ecuador, in nations devastated by the December 2004 tsunami like Sri Lanka and Indonesia, and in nations with clearly odious debts like South Africa whose people are still paying for the loans of the apartheid regime, will not receive any debt relief under the G8 agreement.

Other countries that have qualified for potential debt cancellation under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative but were not part of the original 18 will have to wait years to see their debts cancelled because of harmful economic conditions imposed by the World Bank and IMF. These conditions require countries to restrict social sector spending to reduce inflation and privatize key public services like water and health care.

Take, for example, the case of Haiti. Haiti qualified for the HIPC Initiative shortly after the inauguration of democratically-elected leader Rene Préval in February, but will have to wait to receive debt cancellation until December 2009—at the earliest. By that time, the poorest nation in Latin America will have paid $220 million in debt service payments from 2005-2009 and will continue to pay service on debt to the Inter-American Development Bank, Latin America’s largest creditor who was excluded from the G8 agreement. This is money that could be used for health or education in a nation where 23% of children under five are chronically malnourished and nearly half the population is illiterate.

Given the clearly odious nature of this debt—nearly half of Haiti’s debt is a legacy of the Duvalier family dictatorship, notorious for its corruption and human rights abuses—this is money that the Haitian people do not rightfully owe. The return to peace and stability following Haiti’s recent election offers the country a fresh opportunity to break free from its difficult past, but the country needs immediate debt cancellation in order to free the resources necessary to build a stable and prosperous democracy.

As Haiti’s case illustrates, a much broader and deeper approach to debt relief is needed that will provide the benefits of debt cancellation to all impoverished nations that require it to meet their people’s basic needs. Instead of increasing oil production in the name of “energy security,” the leaders of the G8 should be focusing on building on last year’s commitments to tackle global insecurity through increased funding to fight poverty and a true, prophetic debt deal that will include all impoverished countries that require cancellation and their creditors.

Join debt campaigners around the world as they continue to raise the profile of these issues into the 2007 Sabbath year, when G8 leaders will return to Germany for the first time since 2000, seven years following the historic summit when a broad network of people of faith and conscience first joined together under the banner of Jubilee 2000, challenging policy makers to end the debt crisis.

Be part of the Jubilee movement by taking action today to end crushing debt that diverts resources from health, education, and the environment to pay rich countries and financial institutions. This coming August, we are asking supporters to set up meetings with their representatives about the Jubilee Act (HR 1130), legislation that, if passed, will provide 100% debt cancellation for 50 of the most impoverished countries without strings attached. Visit our website to learn more about how you, your community, or congregation can become part of the historic, worldwide movement to end debt and poverty. See www.jubileeusa.org.