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Commonwealth Secretariat press release

Commonwealth Secretary-General urges faster debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries

25 July 2000

Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon welcomes the commitment by G8 industrialised nations in Okinawa to help poor developing countries better position themselves to speed up growth and eradicate poverty.

In particular, Mr McKinnon welcomes the G8's resolve to push forward the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, and the HIPC's resolve to develop comprehensive and country-owned poverty reduction strategies.

In a message to G8 Heads of Government before their Summit, Mr McKinnon stressed that debt relief needed to translate into benefits for the poor and into vital social programmes.

The Commonwealth has promoted the HIPC Initiative from the beginning stressing that heavily indebted poor countries simply cannot recover and grow without a substantial and faster reduction in the burden of unsustainable debt.

Mr McKinnon notes that notwithstanding the progress achieved in implementing the enhanced HIPC framework to date, as well as the G8 re-endorsement of the initiative at Okinawa, several key challenges remain:

  • A substantial number of countries still need to be reviewed for debt relief programmes in the coming months if the target of 20 countries by the end of this year is to be met. The large overload and unpredictability of policy conditions must be reduced if this is to be achieved. 
  •  The support of donors is needed to provide sufficient funding for debt relief.  Their support should be additional to existing aid commitments. 
  • The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) process associated with the HIPC Initiative should be an important instrument for mobilising external support for poverty reduction.  It will be important to ensure that countries' poverty reduction programmes work effectively as intended.

 

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