Debt payments 'nation-crushing,' KAIROS forum told
Salome Owuonda, the executive director at the Africa Centre for Sustainable and Inclusive Development (Africa CSID), spoke about the consequences of crushing debt in Kenya during a June 13 plenary session staged during the G7 Jubilee People's Forum at Ambrose University in Calgary. The conference runs through June 15.
Quinton Amundson
The Catholic Register
June 13, 2025
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Global partners of KAIROS Canada advocated that all must strive for the collective liberation of the world from oppression and injustice by wiping clean nation-crushing debt.
Several presenters took the stage to share testimony and notable statistical facts during a plenary assembly this morning on day two of the G7 Jubilee People’s Forum at Ambrose University in Calgary that runs through June 15. This grassroots assembly is a prelude to the G7 Summit of world leaders occurring in Kananaskis, an hour west of Alberta’s most populous city, from June 15-17.
Dean Dettloff, a research and advocacy officer for Development and Peace – Caritas Canada, shared that over “3.3. billion people in the world live in countries that spend more paying the interest of their debt than health care and education.” He added that many nation states also direct more funds to these expenditures than safeguarding the environment.
Salome Owuonda, the executive director at the Africa Centre for Sustainable and Inclusive Development (CSID) in Kenya, told the over 100 forum registrants that in her East African country “50 per cent of revenue generated is directed toward paying debt” and that puts health care, education, climate action and food security at risk.
“And things are not getting better,” said Owuonda. “The government is calling for more taxes as they have to try and pay the debt.”
A June 4 release from the African Sovereign Debt Justice Network said the Kenyan economy is approximately $77 billion (U.S.) in debt, which equates to $10 trillion Kenyan shillings.
Tarek Al-Zoughbi, a Palestinian Christian who serves as the project and youth coordinator at Wi’am: The Palestinian Conflict Transformation Centre in the West Bank, spoke about the suffering in Gaza and many countries around the world.
Al-Zoughbi said that during this Jubilee year, we “must begin to recognize this image of God that is in each of us and that is in the spirit of creation.” He called for an end to environmentally exploitative practices that contribute to ecological debt.
KAIROS Canada — the faith-based ecumenical organization — wants 2025 to replicate Jubilee 2000. More than $100 billion of debt for 36 low-income countries was cancelled at the turn of the century.
(Amundson is a staff writer for The Catholic Register.)
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