The Commonwealth
  1. Home
  2. What's New
    1. Latest News - RSS
  3. Who We Are
  4. What we do
    1. Democracy and Consensus Building
    2. Economic Development
    3. Education
    4. Environment and Climate Change
    5. Gender
    6. Good offices for peace
    7. Health
    8. Human Development
    9. Human Rights
    10. Rule of law
    11. Public Sector Development
    12. Sport
    13. Youth
  5. How we do it
    1. CHOGM
    2. Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group
    3. Technical Cooperation and Strategic Response Group
    4. Policy Development
    5. Advisory Services
    6. Development Network
    7. Funding
    8. Case Studies
  6. News
    1. News Archive
    2. Press Releases
    3. Multimedia
    4. Commonwealth Newsletter
    5. Follow us
    6. Events
    7. FAQs
    8. Media Contacts
  7. Resources
    1. Documents
    2. Library & Archives
  8. Publications
  9. Employment
  10. FAQs
    1. Acronyms
  11. Contact Us

Reports

HIPC Clinic reports on the CMDSF Meeting, APRIL 2008

The 12th Commonwealth Ministerial Debt Sustainability Forum Meeting, previously known as the CHMF for Commonwealth HIPC Ministerial Forum (CHMF) Meeting, took place on 9 April 2008, at the World Bank in Washington DC.

Finance Ministers from Cameroon, Ghana, Guyana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania and Zambia attended the meeting. Some French non Commonwealth countries and international organisations were also represented. The participation of the latter was broad and ranged from the African Development Bank, Crown Agents, the IMF, Inter-American Development Bank, Macroeconomic & Financial Management Institute of Eastern and Southern Africa (MEFMI), Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management (WAIFEM), the World Bank, Eurodad and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.

Hon Ashni Singh, Minister of Finance, Guyana was elected as the Chair and the outgoing Hon. Kwado Baah-Wiredu, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning of Ghana, was congratulated for his excellent contribution to the Forum for the past year.

All the Commonwealth countries have now reached the completion point. The Gambia was the last one in last year. Ministers received the reports of all the parties involved in their work done and reviewed them accordingly. The Resident Legal Adviser made a presentation on the way forward in order to help Member States receiving their debt relief to maintain their debt sustainability position and to move towards macroeconomic stability. As a way forward, proper laws on fiscal management, as already enacted in many Commonwealth and non Commonwealth countries, know as the Fiscal Responsibility Act, was proposed to the Ministers for consideration.

Ministers welcomed the establishment of the HIPC Legal Referral Service and the capacity building programs of sensitising Officers of the Attorney General’s Office and Ministry of Finance on the issue of negotiation of loan agreements and took note of the assistance of the Legal Referral Service in promoting the implementation of fiscal laws.

Click here to read the ministerial statement