• Economics:
• Finance and Debt

Finance and Debt

The Secretariat provides debt management support and advice and aims to strengthen the capacity of its developing members.

Commonwealth HIPC Ministerial Forum

The Commonwealth HIPC Ministerial Forum meets twice a year as a formal reporting structure to the Commonwealth Finance Ministers Meeting (CFMM).

The Secretariat, through the work of the Commonwealth HIPC Ministerial Forum, has continued its efforts to help lowincome countries achieve a permanent exit from their debt overhang and ensure long-term debt sustainability. Key Issues include:

• long-term debt sustainability and domestic debt,
• public private partnerships (PPPs) for infrastructure in post-conflict countries,
• non-participating creditors and sovereign debt in istress,
• extending debt relief to other low-income countries,
• deeper and wider debt relief, debt cancellation and additionality. 

Debt Management

Through the work of the Debt Management Section of its Special Advisory Services Division (SASD) the Commonwealth Secretariat offers an integrated programme of assistance on debt management, with the benefit of its own debt recording and management software (CS-DRMS. Available in English and French, this is in use in some 54 countries within and beyond the Commonwealth, where governments are able to manage debt and foreign reserves more effectively, and to evaluate new borrowings in a scientific manner.

The system enables countries to record and analyse their external and domestic debt flows to the private and public sectors. It also assists in HIPC and poverty reduction analysis, by providing interface with the World Bank’s Debt Sustainability Model and other analytical packages. More...