Pillaged Lives: Third World Debt and Global Institutions
CD-Rom
Social Justice Committee of Montreal
System requirements: PC 486 or higher; Windows 3.1/95; 8mb RAM; VGA 256 colours
Send Can$25 to SJCM, 1857 de Maisonneuve O., Suite 320, Montreal, QC. H3H 1J9, Canada. E-mail: <sjc@web.net>
Review by Norm Dixon
Have you ever wandered into one of those computer shops and searched high and low for the educational and reference section? You will have discovered that, if the shop has one, it is likely to amount to a shelf or two of CD-ROMs devoted to the superficial or the downright stupid.
When you consider how much multimedia and interactive information can be packed into a CD-ROM, its potential for serious publishing is enormous, yet 99% of CD-ROMs are full of mindless shoot-'em-up games and vacuous trivia. Happily, Pillaged Lives is the exception.
Pillaged Lives takes us on an easy-to-follow journey through the origins and impact of the debt crisis on the Third World. The role and functions of the main international financial institutions — the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the World Trade Organisation — are explained.
Case studies go beyond the western financial institutions' claims to lay bare their real record.
While Pillaged Lives seems to be pitched at the introductory level, it is enormously educational, even for long-term activists.
This CD-ROM is not as high-tech and graphics-rich as some of the junk that you can pick up at your local computer game shop, but what it loses through simplicity, it gains from accessibility and lucidity. Throughout, the narration and text are displayed to the sound of some lovely South American music.
In 1994, Pillaged Lives explains, the total debt for sub-Saharan Africa was US$210 billion. The debt/GDP ratio, which measures the debt in relation to the total economic output of the continent, equalled 123.1%. In other words, the total debt owed is higher than the total annual output of goods and services. The ratio of outstanding debt to annual exports is even more striking — it equalled 310.6% in 1993.
Contrary to the prevailing belief that Africa does not service its debts, sub-Saharan Africa paid a total of $101 billion in debt servicing in 1982-1992. The total for all of Africa was $240 billion. Debt servicing diverts resources from local needs on a huge scale, depriving Africans of their right to adequate nutrition, health and education.
Over the past decade, the multilateral system has slowly become the major creditor. The World Bank accounts for over $27 billion of sub-Saharan Africa's overall debt, or close to 15%. This figure quadrupled between 1983 and 1990. In effect, the aid budgets of rich countries are being used to maintain the viability of this $27 billion debt to the World Bank.
During the 1970s, World Bank lending to developing countries increased five-fold. At the same time, it actively encouraged banks and northern governments to increase their lending. The poor are now being forced to pay through cutbacks in education and health spending, and reductions in their living standards and physical well-being, through structural adjustment programs.
Pillaged Lives explains what this means in human terms:
- Africa spends four times more on debt servicing than on health care for its 662 million people.
- Less than one-third of Africa's debt service bill would fund the additional costs of programs required to meet the key goals set by the World Summit for Children in 1990.
Uganda, a country touted by the US and the international financial institutions as an economic success story for following their dictates, is one of the CD-ROM's case studies. In 1994, Uganda had a total debt of US$3.5 billion, while its gross national product was $3.94 billion.
After suffering dictatorships until 1986, Ugandans are now dealing with an AIDS epidemic (9% of the people have AIDS) in one of the poorest countries in the world.
One child in 10 does not survive his or her first year. Almost one in five dies before their fifth birthday, mostly from preventable causes. On average, people in Uganda have a life expectancy of only 44 years.
While Uganda spent about $3 on health care per person in 1996/97, it paid $5.80 to multilateral creditors ($3.20 to the IMF).
Uganda had a series of structural adjustment programs through the 1980s and 1990s. In the early 1980s, the Obote regime accepted all IMF conditions, and literally signed the economy over to the fund.
The currency was devalued, and price controls were abandoned. The quality of education went down (although the number of schools went up), medical service all but ceased, and roads went unrepaired.
The National Resistance Movement came to power in 1986, after years of civil war. It began structural adjustment programs in 1987, accelerating the pace two years later. Price and distribution controls were dismantled, and state-owned marketing and agricultural bodies were either abolished or reduced.
With good weather and prices, there was some growth in production, but external factors brought total exports down. The economy failed to adjust to external shocks, and by 1988 was severely destabilised and heavily dependent on external financial assistance.
The GNP fell steadily between 1987 and 1992, after which it began to recover. Between 1987 and 1994, the total debt grew from US$1.6 billion to US$3.5 billion, and the country had difficulties servicing its debt, incurring external payments arrears.
While there has been some economic growth, the gap between rich and poor has widened. Cutbacks in health and education, and the imposition of user fees, have put these services out of the reach of many. More children, especially girls, are being withdrawn from school, and primary school attendance is half what it should be. In the poorest areas, less than one child in 10 attends school.
Pillaged Live is a great example of what CD-ROM technology can do. Urge your local school, library or progressive organisation to invest in a copy.