Reuters

October 1, 2004

Washington: Advocates and activists on Thursday pressed the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to forgive the debt of the world’s poorest countries, and sparked debate on the fairness of targeted relief for Iraq.

More than a hundred representatives from non-governmental organizations gathered at a ‘Town Hall’ forum at the World Bank headquarters to raise concerns about poor country debt, women’s rights and government corruption.

Responding to a question from the Jubilee Debt Campaign, a group campaigning for outright debt cancellation for poor nations, South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said decisions on debt relief could be ethically difficult.

“It’s a very tough call. Who will be the determiner of whether debt is relieved?” he said, raising the possibility of preferential debt relief for Iraq.

“If that should happen in Iraq why should it not happen in the Democratic Republic of Congo?,” he said, adding: “I think we must have rules that are equally applied.”

British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, who has pressured the IMF to revalue its gold reserves to free up extra funds for debt forgiveness, said he was optimistic about the likelihood of progress on debt relief commitments during this weekend’s meetings of the Group of Seven industrial nations and World Bank and IMF shareholders in Washington.

“We support, and I hope that there will be soon a consensus . . . that a vast majority of the debt of Iraq is wiped out,” Brown said, adding that such a move need not preclude action to help the world’s poorest, grouped under the lenders’ Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative.

“The issue in Iraq is bilateral debt. The issue that we are dealing with for HIPC countries is essentially a greater issue of multilateral debt,” he added.

“I hope that both of these can move forward this weekend.”