Download Free Debt Relief For Low Income Countries And The Hipc Initiative Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Debt Relief For Low Income Countries And The Hipc Initiative and write the review.

The paper describes the debt burden of low-income countries and the traditional mechanisms that have been implemented by the international community to alleviate this burden. While these mechanisms are sufficient to reduce the external debts of many heavily indebted poor countries (HIPCs) to sustainable levels provided these countries implement sound economic policies, they are likely insufficient for a number of countries. To deal with these cases, the World Bank and the IMF have jointly proposed and implemented the HIPC Initiative. The paper describes this Initiative and suggests that it should enable HIPCs to exit from the debt rescheduling process.
This paper describes the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative and suggests that it should enable HIPCs to exit from the debt-rescheduling process. It argues that implementation of the Initiative should eliminate debt as an impediment to economic development and growth and enable HIPC governments to focus on the difficult policies and reforms required to remove the remaining impediments to achieving sustainable development. The paper describes the implementation of the Initiative through the end of September 1998.
The low-income country debt crisis had its origins in weak macroeconomic policies, and official creditors’ willingness to take risks unacceptable to private lenders. Payments problems were initially addressed through nonconcessional reschedulings and new lending that maximized financing while containing the budgetary costs for creditors. This led to an unsustainable buildup in debt stocks. More recently, debt ratios have improved, reflecting both adjustment and substantial debt relief. The paper estimates debt relief initiatives since 1988 have cost creditors at least $30 billion, and possibly much more. This compares with the estimated costs of about $27 billion under the enhanced HIPC Initiative.
The International Monetary and Finance Committee at its 2004 Annual Meetings called on the international community to provide assistance including “further debt relief” to low-income countries for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It reaffirmed the Fund’s “important role” in supporting lowincome countries and called on the Fund to consider “further debt relief and its financing.” More impetus for this request was provided by various recent proposals (summarized in Annex I). At their meeting in London in February, G7 Finance Ministers expressed their willingness to provide as much as 100 percent multilateral debt relief.
The history of debt relief goes back several decades. It reveals that a country s accumulation of unsustainable debt stems from such factors as deficiencies in macroeconomic management, adverse terms-of-trade shocks, and poor governance. Debt-relief initiatives have provided debt-burdened countries with the opportunity for a fresh start, but whether the benefits of debt relief can be preserved depends on transformations in a country s policies and institutions. In 1996, the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative was launched as the first comprehensive, multilateral, debt-relief framework for low-income countries. In 2005, the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative was established, which increased the level of debt relief provided to HIPCs. As of early 2009, assistance through these two initiatives had been committed to 35 countries and amounted to US$117 billion in nominal terms, or half of the 2007 GDP of these countries. 'Debt Relief and Beyond' assesses the implications of debt relief for low-income countries and how its benefits can be preserved and used to fight poverty. The chapter authors bring unique operational experience to their examination of debt relief, debt sustainability, and debt management. Several key questions are addressed, including, what consequences does debt relief have for poverty-reducing expenditures, growth, and access to finance? Can debt relief guarantee debt sustainability? How can debt management at all levels of government be improved? What lessons can be learned from countries that have experienced debt restructuring? Finally, this book provides sound empirical evidence using current econometric techniques.
The debt problems of poor countries are receiving unprecedented attention. Both federal and non-governmental organizations alike have been campaigning for debt forgiveness for poor countries. The governments of creditor nations responded to that challenge at a meeting sponsored by the G-7, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank, all of which upgraded debt relief as a policy priority. Their initiatives provided for generous interpretations of these nations' abilities to sustain debt, gave them opportunities to qualify for debt relief more rapidly, and linked debt relief to broader policies of poverty reduction. Despite this, the crisis has only deepened in the first years of the new millennium. This brilliant group of contributions assesses why this has occurred. In plain language, it considers why debt relief has been so long in coming for poor countries. It evaluates the cost of a persistent overhang in debt for those countries. It also examines, head on, whether enhanced debt relief initiatives offer a permanent exit from over-indebtedness, or are merely a short-term respite. Above all, this volume for the first time addresses the issues on the ground: that is, the views and opinions about debt relief on the part of leaders in advanced nations, and the probability of further support for the most impoverished lands. In this approach, the editors and contributors have made an explicit and successful attempt to be inclusive and relevant at all stages of the analysis. This volume covers the full range of the poorest countries, with contributions by John Serieux, Lykke Anderson and Osvaldo Nina, Befekadu Degefe, Ligia Maria Castro-Monge, and Peter B. Mijumbi. Collectively, they offer a sobering scenario: unless measures are put in place now, in anticipation of further crises, the future of the very poorest nations will remain bleak and troublesome.
After a massive international campaign calling attention to the development impact of foreign debt, the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative is now underway. But will the HIPC Initiative meet its high expectations? Will debt relief substantially raise growth? How do we make sure that debt relief benefits poor people? And how can we ensure that poor countries do not become highly indebted again? These are some of the key policy issues covered in this rigorous and independent analysis of debt, development, and poverty.
This study evaluates progress under the HIPC initiative since IEG's 2003 evaluation. It finds that the Enhanced HIPC initiative cut debt ratios in half for 18 countries, but in eight of these countries, the ratios have come to once again exceed HIPC thresholds. Debt reduction alone is not a sufficient instrument to affect the multiple drivers of debt sustainability. Sustained improvements in export diversification, fiscal management, the terms of new financing, and public debt management are also needed, measures that fall outside the ambit of the HIPC initiative.
The effects of debt relief on incentives to accumulate debt, consume, and invest are an important concern for donors and recipients. Using a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model of a small open economy with a minimum consumption requirement and an endogenous relief probability, we show that excessive debt accumulation is consistent with an anticipation of a future debt relief. Simulations of the calibrated model using 1982-2006 Ugandan data suggest that debt-relief episodes are likely to have only a temporary impact on the level of debt in low-income countries, while being associated with more consumption and less invesment. The long-run debt-to-GDP ratio is estimated to be about twice as high with debt relief than without it.
The debt problems of poor countries are receiving unprecedented attention. Both federal and non-governmental organizations alike have been campaigning for debt forgiveness for poor countries. The governments of creditor nations responded to that challenge at a meeting sponsored by the G-7, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank, all of which upgraded debt relief as a policy priority. Their initiatives provided for generous interpretations of these nations' abilities to sustain debt, gave them opportunities to qualify for debt relief more rapidly, and linked debt relief to broader policies of poverty reduction. Despite this, the crisis has only deepened in the first years of the new millennium. This brilliant group of contributions assesses why this has occurred. In plain language, it considers why debt relief has been so long in coming for poor countries. It evaluates the cost of a persistent overhang in debt for those countries. It also examines, head on, whether enhanced debt relief initiatives offer a permanent exit from over-indebtedness, or are merely a short-term respite. Above all, this volume for the first time addresses the issues on the ground: that is, the views and opinions about debt relief on the part of leaders in advanced nations, and the probability of further support for the most impoverished lands. In this approach, the editors and contributors have made an explicit and successful attempt to be inclusive and relevant at all stages of the analysis. This volume covers the full range of the poorest countries, with contributions by John Serieux, Lykke Anderson and Osvaldo Nina, Befekadu Degefe, Ligia Maria Castro-Monge, and Peter B. Mijumbi. Collectively, they offer a sobering scenario: unless measures are put in place now, in anticipation of further crises, the future of the very poorest nations will remain bleak and troublesome. John Serieux completed this volume as a senior researcher and specialist in international finance for the North-South Institute, an independent research institute based in Ottawa, Canada. Before that he was a lecturer at the graduate program in economics at Chancellor College, at the University of Malawi. His major works are in domestic and foreign resource mobilization. Yiagadeesen Samy is completing his doctoral research in economics at the University of Ottawa in international trade and economics of development. His key interest is now in trade and labor standards.