Debt Vote on Thursday. Jubilee!
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:21 am | posted by ONE.PartnersIt’s official, the Jubilee Act will be voted on in the House Financial Services Committee this coming Thursday, April 3 at 10 a.m. You can watch the debate and the vote here.
If your member of Congress is on the House Financial Services Committee, now would be a great time to give him/her a call and urge a yes vote on Thursday!
The committee vote is the only thing standing between the Jubilee Act & consideration by the full US House of Representatives!
We expect that after the committee vote the Jubilee Act will move fairly quickly. It will probably be considered by the full House of Representatives by Monday, April 14.
You can find a list of the members of the House Financial Services Committee here.
-Monet Cooper, Jubilee USA
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:52 pm
just got word that it passed committee!
=)
April 3rd, 2008 at 11:16 pm
fantastic!
There is a text of the bill here, in case anyone wants to know what it actually says:
http://www.thomas.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:S.2166:
Fun fact from above: we have helped 22 countries with debt relief, and now Great Britain is calling for extending debt relief to 67 qualified countires.
It also includes this paragraph that gives some positive news about results so far:
(6) Resources released by debt relief efforts to date are reaching the poor. Cameroon is using the $29,800,000 of savings it will gain from the MDRI in 2006 for national poverty reduction priorities, including infrastructure, social sector and governance reforms. Uganda is using its $57,900,000 savings in 2006 on improving energy infrastructure to try to ease acute electricity shortages, as well as primary education, malaria control, healthcare and water infrastructure (specifically targeting the poor and under-served villages). Zambia is using its savings of $23,800,000 under the MDRI in 2006 to increase spending on agricultural projects, such as smallholder irrigation and livestock disease control, as well as to eliminate fees for healthcare in rural areas.
…so the work of Jubilee and ONE and others is really doing some good!