Publication

The Jubilee 2000 movement, which called for the cancellation of the foreign debts of the poorest nations, reached its zenith in the late 1990s and 2000—and then, by design, shut down. In the space of a few years, it became one of the most successful international, non-governmental movements in history. As part of a larger, ongoing project to understand the consequences and lessons of the episode, this essay attempts to provide thumbnail assessments of Jubilee 2000 from several perspectives. The essay deemphasizes anecdotes and statistics in favor of major themes.