By Romilly Greenhill and Elena Sisti

September 2003

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. 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?
• Is HIPC debt relief enough to allow countries to meet the Millennium Development Goals?
• 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