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| Sunday, 12 June 2005 |
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US, Britain reach debt-relief agreement for poor nations WASHINGTON, Saturday (AFP) The United States and Britain have agreed on a plan to cancel 100 percent of the debt of 18 of the world's poorest nations to multilateral lenders, the White House said Friday. The plan, if approved, would forgive some 16.7 billion dollars in debts of the countries, mostly in Africa, to lending institutions including the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and African Development Bank, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "The proposal will cancel 100 percent of the World Bank, African Development Bank and IMF debt, and calls on all countries to cancel their bilateral debt for the 18 immediately eligible countries have already met the full requirements of the highly indebted country process," McClellan said. McClellan said a debt relief plan would be linked to "requirements ... (on) improving governance, reducing corruption and completing a program with the IMF that demonstrates a commitment to sound economic policies." But the plan, which does not specify how the debt relief would be financed, still must be approved by the Group of Seven industrialized nations, whose finance ministers meet this weekend to prepare the Group of Eight summit in July. The G7 includes Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States. They are joined by Russia for the G8. The agreement follows a meeting here Tuesday between US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, at which they thrashed out the final details of the agreement, which will likely take center stage at next month's G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland. The agreement was first reported by the New York Times, which identified the countries to benefit as Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guyana, Honduras, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. The method of having the lenders write off the debts of the 18 nations was pushed by the United States, while Britain argued in favor of having rich nations take over the responsibility for repaying the debts to the international lending institutions, the Times said. |
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