Debt or No Debt?
Debt or No Debt? is a debt-themed version of the television gameshow Deal or No Deal?It's a visual and enjoyable way to raise awareness about the amount of poor country debt that still needs to be cancelled, the illegitimate nature of much of this debt, and the problems with the existing debt cancellation process in terms of conditions and control.
*NB. YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THE PRINTED MATERIALS YOU NEED TO MAKE PROPS FOR THE GAME FROM THE RIGHT HAND COLUMN*
The concept
On TV the player opens 22 boxes in turn, and tries to negotiate the best deal for the contents of their box with the mysterious banker, who is on the other end of a phone. In Debt or No Debt?, the player, representing an indebted country, tries to identify the lowest national debt, while negotiating with the shadowy ‘World Banker’ for a debt cancellation deal.
What you will need
You will need: a suitable occasion, a willing audience, a charismatic host and assistant host, plus a variety of Debt or No Debt? props (see right). The props are the hardest part, but with a bit of creativity and commitment a magnificent Debt or No Debt? studio set can be yours!
How to play
Start by choosing the main player who will try to get their country’s debt cancelled by the ‘World Banker’. This could be someone picked at random from the group of players, or it could be a specially invited guest, such as your MP. The player chooses five boxes, one by one, and the player behind that box opens it to reveal a country and a debt. After each box is opened, the assistant reads out a fact about that country and/or its debt. After each round of opening five boxes, there is the negotiation with the Banker by phone, via the host. This allows you tell the story of progression of the debt campaign.
First round: the Banker’s offer is for the country to go to the Paris Club to get its debts rescheduled, so it can borrow more money in order to repay the debts (ie. pre-1996 debt policy).
Second round: the Banker’s offer is for the country to get some of its debt cancelled, down to a ‘sustainable’ level of debt, if it complies with a set of conditions including privatisation and liberalisation (ie. under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative, 1996-2005).
Third round: the Banker’s offer is for the country to have 100% of its World Bank debts cancelled, once it complies with all the conditions under the HIPC initiative (ie. the Gleneagles G8 agreement in 2005).
Fourth round: the Banker says that the country can’t possibly need debt cancellation. All the countries that need debt cancellation are getting it. Poor country debt has been dropped, hasn’t it? (However, as thefacts read out during the game will have shown, this is far from the case).
With two boxes remaining, the player will know that their country’s debt is one of the two remaining in the game, and gets a last opportunity to swap their box with the other that remains. Either way, they will need the support of debt campaigners if they are going to get it cancelled.
FULL PROPS LIST
- Up to 22 cardboard boxes, painted red
- Up to 22 volunteers to staff the boxes
- Numbers 1-22 for the front of the boxes*
- Country and debt figures for inside the boxes*
- Display board to show which amounts are still undiscovered
- Debt figures and title for the display board*
- Tables for the boxes to go on
- Debt facts to go with each country’s debt*
- A telephone (old style if possible, but might be best with a mobile if you want it to ring)
- ‘Lift the Lid on Bad Loans’ graphic (cut out or copied from campaign postcards) as a seal on each box
- A drum, to add a ‘heartbeat’ sound effect during the negotiations with the Banker
