Conference Announcement: Jubilee South-South Summit (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

Conference Announcement

Sorry for cross posting and please circulate widely

South - South Summit on Debt
Johannesburg 18 - 21 November 1999
For A Debt Free Millennium

Jubilee South, the movement of Jubilee debt campaigns and social
movements campaigning for the cancellation of the debt of the poor will
host a South - South Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa from the 18 -
21.

Jubilee South has emerged out of a series of consultations amongst debt
campaigns in Latin America - Caribbean, Africa and Asia - Pacific giving
rise to the Tugicigalpa, Gauteng, Lusaka, Asia - Pacific declarations.
Building on this consensus, Jubilee South intervened at the G7 Summit in
Cologne articulating a specific South perspective and strategy for debt
cancellation. At the International Jubilee 2000 meeting in Cologne, the
caucus of campaigns in the South decided to call the South - South
Summit for 18 - 21 November.

Summit Objectives

1. To bring together social movements and campaigns in the South to
build a perspective for the debt campaign that is driven by and responds
to the ongoing political, social, ecological and gender struggles;
2. To advance a campaign strategy that encompasses national and
international dimensions and addresses the roots, manifestations and
consequences of the debt problem.
 
Participants
The Summit will be attended by representatives of social movements,
people's organisations and campaigns based in the South. While we have
many friends and colleagues in the North who are playing a very
important role in the global campaign, we believe it is necessary for
activists from the South to be given the space to come together and
develop their visions, perspectives and strategies. It is envisaged that
immediately after the Summit a process of broad engagement and
consultation will follow with our partners in the North leading to a
reinvigorated global campaign.

Social movements and peoples organisations have a special place at the
Summit. Trade unions, peasant, women's, youth and community movements
have the experience, vision and capacity to develop the campaign for
debt cancellation into a movement that can fundamentally challenge the
structural dimensions and power relations underlying the current debt
crisis.

Jubilee campaigns and debt movements have been at the forefront of
building the momentum of the campaign in the South. Many of these have
rooted themselves in the realities of their countries and are faced with
the challenge of developing a strategy that addresses their own
governments, the creditor countries and the creditors themselves.

The conference is limited to a maximum of 200 delegates and therefore
representatives of Non Government Organisations and other civil society
institutions based in the South will be considered only under
exceptional circumstances.

A Debt Free Millennium
The theme of the Summit expresses our desire not only to have the debt
which is crippling our societies cancelled but to have that done in a
way that frees our countries from underdevelopment, dependency and
foreign domination - the conditions that have created the debt crisis.

It also expresses our desire to find an alternative strategy and
development paradigm to the free market development model that has seen
unparalleled levels of poverty for the vast majority of people existing
alongside obscene levels of wealth and consumption for a tiny elite.

Expected Outcomes
The Summit is expected to 
· unite campaigns and social movements around a clear vision for a debt
free millennium;
· develop a critique of current debt initiatives;
· develop a platform and strategy that reorients the debt campaigns
towards our governments in the South and their on-going commitments to
repaying the debt and  implementing harmful macro-economic policies;
· consider appropriate organisational mechanisms for co-ordinating the
campaign and Jubilee South activities. 

Registration
The Summit is limited to 200 delegates. In view of the South African
government's visa requirements and the heavy bookings on flights to
South Africa it is essential that registration forms should reach us by
21 October 1999. These can be faxed, e-mailed or posted to the addresses
below. Please note we have decentralised the process of registration
regionally. Application should be made to the relevant regional offices.

Summit  Fees
Each delegate is expected to cover her/his own travel costs. A modest
conference fee of $50 towards the costs of accommodation, food,
stationary, documents and conference facilities will be charged. While
travel subsidies may be available depending on our success with fund
raising participants should not depend on this. Delegates are requested
to undertake their own fund raising initiatives to ensure their
participation.

Visas
Most delegates will require a visa for South Africa. These can be
obtained from the nearest South African embassy. The Jubilee South
office in South Africa will do its best to assist with any difficulties
encountered.  

For Further Details Contact
-- 
Donna Andrews 
Jubilee 2000 South Africa
Tel (021) 6851565/6 	Fax (021) 6851645	
E-mail donna.andrews@usa.net	
P O Box 1139 
Woodstock 7924
Cape Town