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Teachers Pack
on Debt «
Contents and Suggested use for this pack on Debt
This pack is intended to help students explore the debt crisis in the
developing world as well as issues of poverty and injustice. Included
is background material explaining the origins of the debt crisis, the
main actors, what has happened so far with debt cancellation, a glossary
of terms and suggested actions. Further background
reading is also included together with a list
of videos on debt that are available for loan.
The Debt Crisis:
Aim: To explain the connection between debt and poverty. To explain
the origins of the debt crisis, and to outline emergence of the campaign
for debt cancellation and what has happened so far. To allow understanding
as to the role of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in
the debt crisis and imbalance of power within the institutions.
Suggested use of material:
- Use the Overhead "Who
uses What" (224k, 62 sec @ 56.6kbps) to start
discussion on the use and allocation of resources in the world. Most
of the poorest 1/5 of people in the world live in heavily indebted countries.
- Use the Overhead "The
Distribution of world GNP", (125k, 24 sec @ 56.6kbps)
in conjunction with a world map, to show the concentration of wealth
in the Northern hemisphere and poverty in the Southern hemisphere. Sub-Saharan
Africa has the highest concentration of heavily indebted countries.
The term GNP is explained in the Glossary.
- Sheet 1
- which can be used as an overhead or handout, explains that debt is
a major cause of poverty in the developing world, the sheet also outlines
the origins of the debt crisis - more detailed information is provided
in the background reading.
- Sheet
2 - which should be used in conjunction with a map of the
world, gives a list of heavily indebted poor countries with questions
asking students to find out where these countries are located.
- Sheet
3 - (print in landscape) explains the emergence of
the campaign for debt cancellation together with what has happened with
debt cancellation to date. All the terms are explained in the glossary
and in the background reading section where they are explained in greater
detail.
- Sheet 4
- explains the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank
(WB). These institutions are effectively in control of the debt crisis.
They exercise a huge amount of power and control in indebted countries.
There policies have a direct effect on the lives of people in indebted
countries.
- Sheet 5 - (an overhead) is a chart depicting the voting rights within the IMF. This is intended to make students aware of the huge imbalance of power and representation within the IMF. A similar situation is true also for the World Bank.
There is an excellent class-room based exercise entitled "Debt:
It's a Mystery" available in "Exploring our World"
published by the One World Centre, Northern Ireland - email: ccuthbert@belfast.org
website: www.belfastdec.org.
This exercise will allow students to investigate the effects of debt on
everyday life in
Zambia. There is more information available in our Country
Profiles section.
It is recommended that the above overheads and sheets are used before students are given the exercise "Debt: It's a mystery".
Actions:
The "Debt Fact Sheet", can be filled out by students and returned to the Debt and Development Coalition at the address given. This sheet might be particularly useful if students are visiting the Exhibition "A Different World is Possible" in their local library.
If students do a project on debt, they are welcome to put their work on our website - contact information is provided below.
Further actions are available on our website Campaigns section.
We hope this pack will be of use to you and if you have any suggestions as to how it can be improved, please don't hesitate to contact us. Click here for a text only version of this page for printing
The Debt and Development Coalition,
All Hallows,
Grace Park Road,
Drumcondra, Dublin 9.
Ph: (01) 857 1828
email: campaigns@debtireland.org