Alex Brummer
In an eloquent gesture, designed to underpin development in Uganda – the first of the poorest countries to receive some debt forgiveness – the World Bank advanced the government of President Yoweri Museveni a grant of $75-million this month to support universal primary education across the country.
The move demonstrates just how far the global financial institutions, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), have moved in their willingness to help relieve debt. It provides tangible evidence to other nations taking the complex debt relief route that there are clear economic and social benefits.
It also underlines the need to keep the bank and the fund well resourced, if the ambitious goals for wiping out debt demanded by the Jubilee 2000 campaign are to be met.
At Lancaster House last week finance and foreign ministers from the richest industrial countries and Russia made it explicitly clear, for the first time, that the target of clearing up to 20 of the world’s poorest countries of some $250-billion of international debts by the year 2000 had been adopted as policy – providing the countries concerned have embarked on necessary economic reforms.
To further advance the process the G8 heads of government meeting this weekend in Birmingham, chaired by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, are expected to announce the extension of the process to post-conflict countries such as Rwanda.
The effort to make proper inroads in reducing the debt burden of the poorest countries has made great strides since it was first seriously addressed in 1995. At that time the World Bank and IMF, the main sources of cash, were themselves seen in the development community as one of the sources of poverty. The high priority the two institutions gave to the repayment of loans and interest deprived poor countries of income that could have been spent elsewhere.
This insistence that concessional loans and aid granted by them take a chunk out of national budgeting meant that resources earmarked for vital health, education and water projects in countries across Africa from Uganda to Niger were spent on paying off mortgages on the past.
These debt accumulations among poor nations, at their highest in Mozambique, where public debt reached $5,5-billion, are the results of decades of problems, from famine and falling commodity prices to civil strife and corrupt governance.
But it was a titanic struggle to create a mechanism for wiping out debt that would satisfy both the World Bank and the IMF’s shareholders among the richest countries, and silence the critics among NGOs, environmental groups and aid concerns.
Britain, France, the United States and Canada were big public supporters of the idea. But Germany, Italy and Japan were reluctant participants, fearing that any such scheme would weaken the financial credibility of the World Bank and IMF and also expose the world to the dangers of what financiers call “moral hazard”: if countries, like individuals, know that their debts may never have to be repaid, it will encourage them to borrow and spend the proceeds irresponsibly.
It was to meet these objections that the plan for relief of the multilateral debt – the Highly Indebted Poorest Countries initiative (HIPC) – was created in 1996 with very high hurdles.
Only poor nations that had demonstrated a willingness to reform their affairs would be entitled to debt forgiveness, and it would not be given easily. They would have to follow an agreed pattern of reforms, including budgetary austerity – restricting public spending to only the essentials – for at least three years: the decision point. Governments of poor countries would have to show a proven track record of budgetary reform and sound government to qualify.
Even this was not enough: they would require three more years of austerity before reaching the completion point, at which most of the debt wipe-out would take place. Under these terms it would have taken most of the 20 poorest countries well beyond the millennium to reach completion point.
This toughness was seen as satisfying the political needs of the dissenting Western governments as well as the austerity instincts of the IMF. Moreover, the level of debt relief would be strictly limited using a complex formula based on the poor nation’s export performance.
Despite all the caveats, HIPC is a huge advance. For the first time, the World Bank and IMF recognised that debt relief was a vital objective – not a danger to the financial system.
To speed up the plan, Commonwealth finance ministers meeting in Mauritius last year proposed that three-quarters of the poorest countries should qualify for debt forgiveness by 2000. Since then HIPC has gathered political speed and several obstacles built in the early, cautious days of the scheme are melting away.
In his report to finance ministers in Washington last month the plan’s architect, World Bank president James Wolfensohn, announced that in addition to Uganda, debt relief packages had been approved for Guyana and Ivory Coast, with Mozambique also over the hurdles. The World Bank is considering debt relief schemes for at least 10 countries.
The battle is now on to bring a further five countries to decision, if not completion point, by accelerating the process between now and 2000, as demanded by Gordon Brown, the World Bank’s chancellor. But Germany remains reluctant to provide the funding to the IMF for this programme and have blocked the sale of IMF gold to help pay for it. The Italians and Japanese are following Bonn’s lead.
The US administration which, like Canada, publicly supports the scheme – especially since President Bill Clinton’s high-profile visit to Africa last month – is split over the issue.
The US Treasury is reluctant to hand over cash until it has seen that the countries have demonstrated they are genuine reformers interested in free markets. Russia, although a newcomer to the process, demonstrated its willingness to help in Mozambique, where it held most of the bilateral debt. It is also aware that it has received enormous help from the West in easing its own debt legacy.
The World Bank/IMF scheme has offered a strong beginning. The momentum has picked up substantially in the run-up to Birmingham. But it will only progress if the political will and determination can be sustained.