As the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation meets today to discuss the food crisis in Rome, debt campaigners have issued a call for a moratorium on debt repayments from afflicted countries.
Jubilee Debt Campaign and Christian Aid warn that the World Bank's fund of £60 million to fight the food crisis, the majority of which is in the form of more loans, is little more than "a sticking plaster" on the problem.
They are calling for faster debt cancellation rather than new loans to tackle the food crisis, and more specifically appealing to Chancellor Alistair Darling nd other G8 country finance ministers to cancel Haiti's more than £60 million debt burden.
Despite being promised debt cancellation in 2006, Haiti is still paying around £500,000 a week to the developed countries in debt repayments, even though food prices have sparked hunger and riots that have led to the dismissal of the Prime Minister.
Christian Aid and Jubilee Debt Campaign point out that the World Bank's emergency grant to Haiti, announced last Friday, will only cover Haiti's debt repayments for the next 10 weeks, while the UN has predicted increased food prices for 10 years.
Christian Aid's country representative in Haiti, Prospery Raymond, said:
"There is so little money left in the budget after paying the interest on the debt. There is hardly any room for manoeuvre in paying food subsidies. Granting a debt moratorium is something that the international community has the power to do that would make a huge difference to Haiti's security in the coming months."
