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Commonwealth Secretariat press release

Mozambique to host Commonwealth HIPC Ministerial Forum

14 March 2005

The Commonwealth Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Ministerial Forum is to be held in Maputo, Mozambique, from 15-16 March 2005. Representatives of 15 governments will be attending this meeting - 10 Commonwealth HIPC countries and five Francophone ministers - as well as l'Agence Intergouvernementale de la Francophonie, which will be participating for the first time.

The Forum will focus on domestic debt and long-term debt sustainability, and the implications for capacity-building. Public-private partnership investments in HIPC countries and post-conflict states will also be examined. The delegates will assess the progress on the implementation of the HIPC initiative.

Commenting on the HIPC Ministerial Meeting, Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon said:  "While the HIPC initiative has released significant resources for priority expenditures such as health and education, more needs to be done to assist these countries to achieve debt sustainability. I am confident that the Commonwealth HIPC Ministerial Forum will contribute towards building up political momentum to ensure that these countries are able to overcome the constraints on their development that are being imposed by unsustainable debt. Where appropriate, we must move towards full debt cancellation, if we are serious about helping these countries attain the Millennium Development Goals.

The Commonwealth HIPC Ministerial Meeting will be followed on 17 March 2005 by a United Nations multi-stakeholder consultation, which includes senior officials, parliamentarians, academics and representatives of civil society and the private sector. This consultation, co-organised by the Commonwealth Secretariat and the UN Office on Financing for Development, will be opened by the Prime Minister of Mozambique, Louisa Diogo, and the Deputy Secretary-General Winston Cox. The theme of the consultation is 'External Sovereign Debt and Sustainable Development'. Its outcomes will serve as an input to the high-level meeting which will take place in New York in September on the progress made in implementing the Millennium Development Goals and the Monterrey Consensus.

Note to Editors:

The Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative involves 38 countries, mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Ten of these states are Commonwealth members - Cameroon, The Gambia, Ghana, Guyana, Malawi, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania and Zambia. HIPCs are eligible for debt relief  under the World Bank recommendation.

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