Debt Management for Development: Protection of the Poor and the Millennium Development Goals

This book exposes intolerable global double standards in the treatment of debtors and argues that fairness, economic efficiency and principles common to all civilized legal systems, must and can be applied to so-called `developing countries', or Southern sovereign debtors. Tracing the history of Southern sovereign debts, describing the critical role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in enforcing improvements, and discussing technical debt issues, this book presents a solution incorporating the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as an appropriate form of debtor protection. Although most multilateral claims are statutorily subordinated to development needs, multilateral institutions wrongly claim preferred creditor status. They routinely violate their own statutes. Kunibert Raffer discusses grants and loans as alternative ways to finance the MDGs and development and necessary caveats on widely used debt statistics and indicators are made. The effects of the present US crisis are also discussed, making solving the never-ending debt problem particularly urgent. With innovative and never-before discussed topics, this book will appeal to NGO employees, academics and students in development or international relations and political studies. Overseas development institutions and development co-operation ministries and departments will also find this a very useful reference tool.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Preface 1. Brief History of Debt Management Until 1989 2. Brief History of Debt Management After 1989 3. In Quest of Solutions: Sovereign Insolvency Proposals, Collective Action Clauses and Recent Country Cases 4. Gleneagles, the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative and the US Crisis 5. The Raffer Proposal: An International Chapter 9 for Countries 6. Debtor Rights and Fairness to Creditors in Rule of Law-based Insolvency Systems 7. MDGs, Debt Distress and Poverty: Theoretical Roots of Policies Protecting the Poor in Debtor Countries 8. Poverty, Debtor Protection and the MDGs 9. Debt Distress, Global Public Goods and a Global Development Partnership 10. NGO Advocacy for Debt Reduction Cum Debtor Protection 11. The Concept of Sustainability of International Financial Institutions 12. Problems of Overoptimism and Ownership 13. MDGs and Preferred Creditor Status 14. Lending or Granting: ODA and the MDGs Annex on Data: Caveats on Debt Statistics and Indicators Glossary Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Kunibert Raffer, formerly Professor, Department of Economics, University of Vienna, Austria

Review :
‘Professor Kunibert Raffer provides in this seminal work deep insights as well as several new policy issues emerging from global double standards for dealing with poor debtors and also pleads for some semblance of fairness as per all civilized legal systems indeed.’ ‘The detailed coverage of the problems raised by the topic and the relevance of the proposal underlined, make the book a fundamental contribution for anyone interested in development studies.’ ‘The problem of the debt burden and pleas for debt relief have been compared to the girl who killed both her parents and then pleaded for mercy on the grounds that she was an orphan. (It has been called the classic definition of chutzpah.) Kunibert Raffer has more sympathy for the debtors. He discusses the international debt problem in a profound way and his proposal, the Raffer proposal, is ingenious, practical and wise.’ ‘Kunibert Raffer, a distinguished academic, has never confined himself to an ivory tower. Instead he has consistently used his extensive knowledge of law, history, economics and politics to argue for an end to the structural injustice of relationships between rich creditor countries and poor debtor nations. I have always admired the man and his work, and believe the ideas outlined in this book are vital if justice is to be the basis of international financial relations.’