Wednesday 20 February 2008

Debt relief: What’s been achieved since the Birmingham G8?

University of Birmingham is holding a conference on 16 and 17 May to support the city's celebration of the 10th anniversary of Birmingham's G8 meeting in 1998. The 1998 G8 meeting is particularly remembered for the human chain formed around Birmingham city centre by 70,000 people to demand debt cancellation for the world's poorest nations from the G8. Ten years on is an appropriate moment to reflect on impacts, innovations, outstanding problems and priorities for the next decade. Taking part in the conference will be a wide range of analysts of debt and development issues, aid practitioners and policy makers, from recipient and donor countries and multilateral organisations. The programme is organised by theme, with keynote speeches, panels and breakout groups.

The conference has three objectives: to assess the impact of debt relief in poor countries; to analyse problems in debt relief processes and their underlying causes; to discuss reform priorities and innovations. It will be an academic conference with a difference since it kicks off a weekend of events culminating in a high publicity gathering at the International Conference Centre in Birmingham’s city centre on 18 May, organised by Jubilee Debt Campaign with support of Birmingham City Council. Submitted papers that address the conference objectives, including issues underlying debt relief problems, are welcomed. Papers from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds are invited. The organisers also welcome short research briefs (e.g. describing research recently begun), so that upcoming research is publicised at the conference.

Contacts: debtconf@contacts.bham.ac.uk (for papers and abstracts) and sarah@jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk

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