IMF says tell the G8 you want debt cancellation

Debt relief depends on the G8 summit in June in Cologne, and not on actions by the IMF and World Bank, those two financial institutions admitted on 9 February in a statement announcing the details of their new review of the HIPC debt initiative.

The statement says: “In late January, Chancellor Schroeder announced the Cologne Debt Initiative. This presents both an opportunity and a challenge. The opportunity is that at the summit in Cologne, world leaders could provide a major impetus to the HIPC Initiative. The challenge is to assure that the views of the international community, and your views in particular, can feed into the policy discussions leading up to the Cologne Summit.”

In particular, the IMF and World Bank say that their HIPC review is intended to feed into the summit. It will be done in two phases, with the first phase being completed by 15 March so that it will be available before the summit.

The first phase will look at issues of sustainability, timing and conditionality. The second phase will look at issues of poverty reduction and delivery of debt relief.

Individuals and organisations are encouraged to make representations. The full text of the statement with questions, deadlines and instructions on how to respond are on the IMF website.

HIPC is the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative of the World Bank and IMF, which has been widely criticised as providing too little debt relief too late. An internal review of HIPC last year was widely considered to be a whitewash. After strong public pressure, several G8 leaders after the G8 summit in Birmingham last year forced the IMF and World Bank to agree to the new review.