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Mr Anderson Chibwa High Commissioner of Zambia addressed a public meeting of debt campaigners in Edinburgh September 2003

A sizeable crowd of Jubilee Scotland supporters of all ages turned out to give the High Commissioner of Zambia, Mr Anderson Chibwa a warm welcome on his first visit to Scotland and to hear about the effects the international debt burden is having on Zambia's citizens.
His Excellency shared the platform with Jubilee Scotland's Convenor, John Harris, and the new Convenor of the Scottish Parliament's International Development Group, Des McNulty MSP.
Mr McNulty, who spoke first, paid tribute to the ``terrific'' work done by the Jubilee campaign in making people aware of the ``insufferable burden'' of debt carried by developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, and said that it was thanks to its work that there had been a ``significant change'' in the British government's attitude to development.
Although the Scottish Parliament has no direct control over international policies and funding administered by Westminster, Mr McNulty said that international issues were of importance to the Scottish Parliament. And added that the International Development Group was committed to making people in Scotland aware that their success and well-being depended on that of other countries.
He said he had visited Zambia last summer and felt that with its huge amount of natural resources and the vitality of its people, he had no doubt there was real potential to be unlocked.
The key however, was to find the best way of assisting Zambia in the development process, to allow Zambians to make decisions on how to proceed to the most favourable situation possible by unshackling them from debt and changing unfavourable trade agreements.
This message had to be repeated and repeated and repeated to those who were not so aware of issues of debt and trade. He said the members of the International Development Group were committed to achieving this.
After a warm round of applause, John Harris then introduced His Excellency, Mr Anderson Chibwa, as a man who had spent many years working in development, with both the Pan African Institute for Development and CARE International, before taking up his post in Britain in May.
Mr Chibwa began by voicing his support for Jubilee Scotland, saying the Jubilee 2000 campaign had done tremendous work in putting the issue of debt on the agenda of governments all over the world. He admitted that the onus was now on developing countries like Zambia to ``put our houses in order'', but that the repayment of massive debts was holding back progress.
With a population of more than 10 million, Zambia's debt as of June this year stands at an incredible US $6.8 billion - US $700 for each citizen.

Zambia had been due to qualify for $3.8 billion worth of debt relief in December this year but has missed out after refusing to reduce spending on health and education. This means that what little resources the country has - after the fall in world prices of its main export, copper, - has to be used to service debt repayments.
Zambia has been forced to make ``hard choices'', said Mr Chibwa, between servicing its debt repayments and providing basic social needs. The government's commitment to providing free universal education up to the seventh year of school is now no longer possible as the government can't afford to build sufficient schools. Zambia is beginning to see a decline in a number of critical indicators in both health and education. In the 1980s, life expectancy in Zambia was 54 years it has now fallen sharply to just 37 years. Literacy rates are also falling.
Mr. Chibwa said that Zambia was heavily constrained by its huge debt burden and that Jubilee Scotland continuing to put debt on the international political agenda was critical to the country's future development.
At the lively question and answer which followed, Mr Chibwa was asked how developed countries could be assured that developing countries who had their debts written off would not run up further debts.
He said there had to be full discussions between debtor and creditor nations and the financial institutions. At the moment, he has the impression that agreements are dictated by the creditor nations and he admitted that ``sometimes our leaders do not read the fine print'' when signing loan agreements. They then discover they can not meet the benchmark conditionalities. He said there might be less problems in the future if developed and developing countries worked closer together.
When asked if he was disappointed about the outcome at the recent World Trade Organisation meeting in Cancun, he admitted that it was a missed opportunity and said he was disappointed ``for the whole of the world''.
Having missed the HIPC (Heavily Indebted Poor Country initiative) completion point this year, he confirmed that Zambia's finance minister would be engaging more robustly with creditors in the future to ensure that the conditionalities governing future agreements would be ones Zambia could reasonably adhere to.
When asked of his views on Cancun, Mr McNulty said he felt it was a good thing that developing countries had put forward a common face on deals which were so obviously skewed towards favouring developed countries. However, he warned that sometimes too much importance is put on international treaties and meetings, and said that success often comes through small steps involving governments and commercial companies rather than through big, high-profile events.
"I think pressure can be put on big companies to act in a much more equal kind of way'', he said. "There is a shared long-term benefit in having fairer terms of trade. Some companies now have development packages written into their contracts for a less exploitative way of doing things''.
The hot question of agricultural subsidies also came up, with Mr Chibwa pointing out that 80% of Zambia's staple food, maize, was grown by small-scale farmers. "Susbsidies in the developed world affect the prices of products in the developing world - this is part of the reason Cancun failed''.
Mr Norman Chipakupaku, who arranged the ambassador's visit, put the point across more strongly, describing the West's attitude towards food subsidies as ``pure hypocrisy''.
"Subsidies work for US and European farmers so why shouldn't they be good for African farmers? In the `80s, Zambia was ordered to immediately remove the subsidies on our staple food, maize, by among others, Britain, or we would not get any more loans. This led to chaos in our agricultural production and hunger in Zambia for the first time in decades, all because the US wanted to offload its surplus maize on us''..
To wrap up the meeting, a Jubilee Scotland supporter asked Mr Chibwa what message they should take out to the public from his visit, and was told unequivocally: "Cancel the debt and put fair trade in place - from the point of production to consumption''.