(Neo-) Colonialism

• In 1999 official debt service payments by developing countries totaled $78 billion. [4]
• Exports and debt service dominate resource flows to and from developing countries: (in % of developing countries’ GDP (in 2000))[5]



• Time and time again when under economic pressure, countries find themselves sacrificing the needs of their children on the altar of economic orthodoxy - cutting schools, clinics and hospitals to balance their budgets and pay their debts. [18]
• The financial crises of the 1990s have been systemic - with finance surging in and out of countries at a speed and volume beyond the capacity of any country on its own to control. [18]
• International trade rules have also worked against the economic interests of developing countries and failed to restrain protectionism in industrial countries, especially through anti-dumping rules and other non-tariff barriers. [5]
• On average, industrial country tariffs on imports from developing countries are four times those on imports from other industrial countries. [5]
• In addition, countries that belong to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) provide about $1 billion a day in domestic agricultural subsidies - more than six times what they spend on official development assistance for developing countries. [5]
• These barriers and subsidies cost developing countries more in lost export opportunities than the $56 billion in aid they receive each year. [5]
• Human Development Report 1992 estimated the total cost of denying market opportunities to developing countries as roughly $500 billion a year, [18]
• almost 10 times the amount they receive each year in aid. [18]