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education
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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
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