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Millions stand up to demand an end to the cycle of debts and deaths in Asia

As millions of people around the globe have mobilized to mark the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, anti-poverty campaigners in Asia have stood up to demand an end to the cycle of indebtedness and maternal deaths in many parts of the region. The Global Call to Action against Poverty - Asia (GCAP-Asia) has slammed aid conditionalities as causing many Asian countries to sink deeper into debts, thereby worsening poverty in the region, and has called for the lowering of maternal mortality ratio in Asia, saying the deaths of mothers from preventable childbirth and pregnancy complications is senseless and unconscionable.

"Many aid recipient countries in Asia are mired in greater debt as a result of aid. Aid is acknowledged as critical in poverty reduction. However, instead of providing for health and education, water or roads, aid tightens the shackles of poverty, and people pay not only with their resources and taxes, but also with their lives. Access to health services remains severely inadequate or remains severely poor in far too many Asian countries. For many poor women in Asia, the reality of childbirth and pregnancy is death, said GCAP-Asia Co-Convener Marivic Raquiza.

Raquiza noted that aid is critical in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which aims to halve extreme poverty in the world by 2015. But, she said, current aid flows are insufficient to finance the MDGs. The Paris Declaration, she added, which was deemed to make aid-giving more responsive, does not address major issues, such as aid conditionalities. These include the tying of aid, as well as privatization-enabling conditionalities that saw the displacement of entire communities and livelihoods, the devastation of indigenous peoples and cultures and the destruction of the environment. She said aid-receiving conditions to liberalize trade and services have also left their mark in the marginalization of local economies and producers as well as in promoting the migration of workers.

Grants, not loans

"While ODA, including bilateral and multilateral aid, consists of concessional loans with low interest rates, these loans eventually add to the debt stocks of economically-disadvantaged countries. The grant component in both multilateral and bilateral aid remains minuscule relative to the loan component. In actual practice, interest payments often exceed principal repayments, thus there is no actual transfer of funds in aid-giving, only deeper indebtedness," said Wahyu Susilo, head of Advocacy and Networking Division of International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development (INFID), a member of GCAP Indonesia.

The kind of aid needed to end poverty in Asia and break the cycle of indebtedness, Susilo averred, is aid in the form of grants, not loans. "We need such kind of aid that encourages replication of the most effective projects which tend to be small-scale initiatives that promote popular empowerment and self-determination, provide for heath, education, set up community-based irrigation systems, potable water facilities, farm-to-market roads, off-grid renewable energy systems, and other pro-poor infrastructure which benefit the most disadvantaged members of a community. It is also the kind of aid that does not discriminate against countries that fully support sexual and reproductive health and rights or favor only countries that support the war against terrorism," he said.

Meanwhile, Raquiza called on Asian governments to implement plans to improve maternal health and curb the high maternal mortality rates in the region. "In Indonesia, Timor Leste and many South Asian countries, maternal mortality rates are very high. Poor women die from complications because of the lack of health care personnel or medical centers. Often, they have to make long, agonizing journeys to get to a hospital. And some don't reach the hospital on time. That is senseless and unconscionable," she said.

She cited the case of Nepal, where pregnancy-related complications kill over 4,500 women every year. Most of the deaths occur in rural areas, where access to health services and health personnel is severely limited.

Stand up against poverty

This year's commemoration of the International Day of Poverty is touted as having the biggest ever mobilization in support of the Millennium Development Goals. The GCAP alliance and the United Nations Millennium Campaign organized Stand Up and Speak Out events in almost 90 countries. "We have organized a diversity of events and mobilizations across Asia. And millions of people, including a large number of women and children have participated. They called on people to show courage and demand a more urgent political response to the growing crisis of global poverty," said Anil K. Singh, Convener of GCAP South Asia.

For 24 hours, which started from 9pm GMT on October 16, millions around the world gathered in public spaces, schools, places of work or worship, at sports and cultural events, and at landmarks to stand up and speak out against poverty, which claim the lives of 50,000 people everyday. In Asia, Stand Up events were held in China, Singapore, Philippines, South Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan.

Last year, 23.5 million people joined the Stand Up events and set a Guinness World Record in the process. The result of this year's Guinness record attempt will be announced on October 18.

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