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 a class room based exercise together with 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.
Session 1 outlines the origins of the debt crisis and the main actors. Session
2 is a class room based exercise to allow students to investigate the effects
of debt in
Session 1:
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" 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", in conjunction with a world map, to show the concentration
of wealth in the Northern hemisphere and poverty in the Southern hemisphere.
Sub-Saharan
· 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 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.
Session 2:
The class-room based exercise "Debt:
It's a Mystery" is taken from "Exploring our World" published
by the One World Centre,
It is recommended that the above overheads and sheets in Session 1 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 www.debtireland.org
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.
The Debt and Development Coalition,
All Hallows,