Jubilee USA
Jubilee USA Network is the leading U.S. organization working for the
cancellation of developing world debt.
According to Jubilee USA in 2012 they had a very good year in which
"when you donate 25 dollars this year your return on social investment
is 830 thousand dollars". Digging in to this claim a little bit the
debt cancellation they won was valued at nominal not market rates.
Market rates can be quite a bit lower reflecting that the debt is
never likely to be repaid. The case they cited was $2b in debt
cancellation for Sudan/South Sudan, which at market rates was valued
by the Treasury at $250m. If a government was to repurchase it's
debt it would only need to pay the market rate.
Leverage Factor
| Project
| Cost
| Real world outcome
| Outcome estimates
| Economic value in Western terms
|
| Jubilee USA debt cancellation
| $1
| $830-$2,075 in debt reduction reaching the poor
| $830k/$25 x 1/8 (market rate) x 20-50% (assume most debt cancellation fails to reach poor); estimate dollar 20 times more valuable to the poor
| 15,000 - 40,000
|
Leverage Factor
15,000 - 40,000
(Jubilee's leverage factor would be significantly higher than
estimated here if there was a way to demonstrate that funds to pay
debts were coming from health budgets, and that debt cancellation lead
to increased health budgets.)
