Subject: | |
From: | |
Reply To: | |
Date: | Sat, 11 Mar 2000 11:00:52 EST |
Content-Type: | text/plain |
Parts/Attachments: |
|
|
US hardliners soften on debt
Way opens for £62bn relief package
Debt relief: special report
Jubilee 2000
Charlotte Denny and Larry Elliott
Wednesday March 8, 2000
The odds on a comprehensive package of debt relief for the world's poorest
countries shortened yesterday as right-wing republicans on Capitol Hill
called for a total write-off of loans to the 41 worst affected nations.
The move by one of the last bastions of opposition to loans forgiveness
delighted debt campaigners, Jubilee 2000, who have been calling for unpayable
third world debts to be written off by the end of the year.
"A committee dominated by neo-liberal republicans is calling for outright
debt cancellation for HIPC countries. There is now almost unanimous agreement
on this issue, yet the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank will
not put this overwhelming consensus into action," said Anne Pettifor, Jubilee
2000's director.
"Even in Mozambique after the total devastation, the IMF and World Bank
refused to cancel debts and instead are imposing new loans and calculating
future payments."
House republicans proved to be one of the biggest stumbling blocks to
American implementation of a $100bn (£62bn) international loans forgiveness
package proposed by world leaders last September. The White House failed to
get funding from congress for the US share of the deal which would have
written down about half the loans of the worst affected countries.
The call for total debt relief comes in a report on the future of the IMF and
the Fund, released yesterday by an advisory committee to the congress,
dominated by republicans. The commission voted unanimously that the Bank and
the Fund should write off their claims against all heavily indebted poor
countries that implement effective economic and social programmes in
conjunction with the Bank.
"What they have said about debt relief is very encouraging, but they've got
to put their money where their mouths are," said Justin Forsyth, head of
policy at Oxfam.
Aid campaigners hope the report will break the logjam and give the US
administration the political backing to fund America's contribution to the
trust fund. The fund was set up by Britain's Gordon Brown for underwriting
the Bank and the Fund's share of debt relief.
Other development experts fear that traditional hostility towards the Fund on
Capitol Hill may yet sink the US administration's attempts to find the $210m
shortfall.
The report calls for the IMF to pull out of long-term lending in the third
world and to restrict itself to emergency lending to countries facing
financial crises, a view supported by the US Treasury secretary, Larry
Summers.
The Bank should replace its loans programme with grants and stop lending to
countries which have access to private capital markets.
Development experts warned that slimming down the Fund and focusing the Bank
only on the poorest countries could reduce the amount of funding for
development.
"Building sewers and schools is vital for development even in middle income
countries, but no private sector fund is going to be interested in lending
for that," said Seth Amgott, a spokesman for Oxfam America.
hkanteh
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|