Jubilee Scotland is a small part of the international Jubilee movement that campaigns against the debts that bind the poorest of the world into a modern form of slavery - it continues the work of the Jubilee 2000 coalition in Scotland.

In the last two decades, the hard campaigining of ordinary people around the world has led to extraordinary postive change. Through the Jubilee movement, a public pressure has been created which has forced the rich countries of the world to cancel many of the unpayable and unjust debts they were owed by some of the world's poorest nations.

The debt cancellations of the last decade have released many billions of pounds for the poorest countries of the world, money that has been freed up to spend on essential services such as schools and hospitals, without dependency on external aid. 

Jubilee Scotland has since 2001 been a part of these achievements. A coalition of charities, churches and civil society groups, we have succeeded in keeping debt on the political agenda in Scotland, through awareness-raising campaigns such as All Hands on Debt and Face up to World Debt. In 2005 we were a part of the Make Poverty History coalition, which succesfully campaigned for the cancellation of the debt owed by all Highly Indebted Poor Countries to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

But there is still a huge amount of work to be done. Debt repayments from poor countries to rich ones still continue to dwarf the aid that flows in the opposite direction. Rapacious vulture funds prey on those very countries that are emerging from existing debt-cancellation programmes. Rich countries trying to stimulate their own countries' growth are relaxing the human-rights and environmental standards associated with new lending. And - with global growth slowed by recession - those same countries are faced by the looming possibility of new debt distress. And these big-scale problems translate into grinding poverty and lack of freedom for ordinary people in countries around the world.

A vast amount has been achieved through the debt campaign, but the one-off cancellations did not leave in place any institutions by which debt could be challenged in the future, a debt tribunal or level playing field in which both debtors and creditors could meet. As such, the agreed Millenium Development Goal targets for 2015 are in severe jeopardy. As world leaders seek to clean up the global financial systems which have caused such recent turmoil - and which continue to drive an unsustainable economy, we need to remind them to make such a debt arbitration system a key tool of reform.

Debt is not done.

Take action.