Real Progress Report on HIPC
By Romilly Greenhill and
Elena Sisti of Jubilee Research
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The Real Progress Report on HIPC, launched just in advance of the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings in Dubai, provides policy makers, politicians, NGOs, campaigners and debtor government with real information about the progress of the HIPC initiative.
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Intended as a shadow version of the official HIPC Status of Implementation Report, it answers the questions that the official HIPC reports do not:
- How much debt has actually been cancelled?
- Are creditors really sharing the burden of debt relief under the HIPC initiative?
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Is HIPC debt relief enough to allow countries to meet the Millennium Development Goals?
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Why is HIPC moving so slowly?
Drawing on the information contained in the report, Jubilee Research, together with CAFOD, Christian Aid, Oxfam International and Eurodad, is calling for radical reform of the HIPC initiative. In particular, we are demanding that:
- Rich countries must provide enough debt relief to help poor countries to meet the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goals;
- Debt relief must be accompanied by a new ‘contingency financing’ mechanism to help poor countries weather economic shocks;
- Heavily Indebted Poor Countries must no longer be forced to follow strict IMF conditionalities to be eligible for debt relief;
- The World Bank and the IMF must provide their fair share of debt relief under the initiative, funded by IMF gold sales and reductions in World Bank reserves;
- The international community must provide financial and technical assistance to HIPCs to help them fight litigation by private sector creditors;
- The World Bank and the IMF must be more transparent in their reporting of progress on the HIPC initiative
For the full text of the Real Progress Report on HIPC, click here
- – Email: info.jubilee@neweconomics.org
Jubilee Research at the New Economics Foundation is an official successor to the Jubilee 2000 UK campaign - which launched the slogan "Drop the Debt" - supported by Bono of U2, Bob Geldof, Youssou Ndour, Thom Yorke and others. Jubilee 2000 was a hugely successful international campaign which mobilised 24 million people over a five year period to cancel the "unpayable debts of the poorest countries by the year 2000". In 1999, at the Cologne G8 Summit, world leaders agreed to cancel $100bn of debts owed by the poorest countries. Jubilee Research, whose director is Ann Pettifor, took over from Jubilee 2000 in 2001; and provides in-depth analysis and data on third world debt, including the sovereign debts of HIPCs - Heavily Indebted Poor Countries; emerging markets; but also rich debtor nations like the US. We also promote a new, just, international insolvency framework for sovereign debtors - the Jubilee Framework.
HIPC's are "heavily indebted poor countries". They are deemed to include the countries on this World Bank map.
http://www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk/default.asp?action=article&id=310
http://jubileeresearch.org
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