Bamako, Mali — "Jubilee 2000" organisations concluded a three-day international conference in Bamako Monday with criticisms against economic globalisation, saying it was "a mechanism aimed at siphoning resources from the poor in favour of the rich."

In their final document, conference participants from Africa, Latin America, Europe and Asia said that globalisation was based on debt. They called for new strategies to make western powers cancel the debts of poor countries.

The participants argued that 30 years since the globalisation process began, the quest for financial gain, has become more important than respect for human or environmental rights.

The final document noted that the interests of a handful of credit donors, speculative investors and shareholders had taken precedence over the rights of peoples and nations and over "our common right to a viable environment".

Delegates expressed their commitment to replace globalisation with all-inclusive economic and political systems to cater for the interests of the poor and the excluded.

They called for greater solidarity between members of the movement in order to achieve greater social equity in the world.

Twenty seven national and social movements attended the Bamako conference, which was the continuation of previous meeting that have been held in Accra, Ghana and Lome, Togo in 1998 as well as in Tegucigalpa, Honduras in 1999.