Debt Relief

If you thought California’s problems with public education were daunting, take a look at the developing world, where one in four adults--872 million in all--can’t read or write.

The numbers have been rising since the superpowers halted their investments in poor “satellite” countries with the end of the Cold War. Now, nations in Africa are so indebted to the West that, on average, they are sending four times as much money to their international creditors as they spend on education at home.

Developing nations that are unable to invest in their human capital and brain power today will never accumulate the monetary capital needed to relieve their growing debts. Such countries will inevitably become economically and politically destabilized, and the first country that will be called on to police them will, of course, be the United States.

That’s why it makes sense for Congress to pass a newly introduced bill that would tie U.S. debt forgiveness to the willingness of developing nations to invest in children’s access to education.

Authored by Rep. James A. Leach (R-Iowa) and heartily supported in a House hearing Tuesday by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the bill is careful to extend debt forgiveness only to countries that agree to have neutral parties observe their educational reforms, a critical anti-corruption step.

The bill is slated to be heard in two House committees as early as next week. The Clinton administration should strongly support it and make its message a centerpiece of the spring summit of the International Monetary Fund later this month, and the meeting of the leaders of the major industrialized nations in Cologne, Germany, in June.