Fuente: © World Bank
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World Bank Aims To Wipe Out $40 Billion In Debt Owed By Poor Countries

/noticias.info/ The World Bank's Board is expected to consider a plan next week for wiping out poor countries' debt, the lending institution's president said, reports The Associated Press.

The expected approval by the board would be mostly a formality. Financial leaders nailed down the landmark debt-relief plan at meetings in late September of the 184-nation World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). A general framework for the deal was endorsed by leaders of the world's eight major industrial powers at the July economic meeting in Scotland. Details of putting the deal in place were left largely to the World Bank and the IMF.

Xinhua (China) notes World Bank President, Paul Wolfowitz, said that the plan would forgive almost $40 billion in debt owed by 18 poor countries, mostly in Africa, over a 40-year period. The plan is expected to be implemented in fiscal year 2007, which begins on July 1, 2006.

Reuters further writes Wolfowitz said donors reached a unanimous consensus and will report their results to the board positively promptly. The World Bank President added that some donors had chipped in additional funding to ensure there were no financing gaps over the next three years and cover 80 percent of the costs for the next 10 years of the agreement. He further said there was a strong political commitment to make up the remaining costs. "Because of the way in which countries appropriate money and parliamentary procedures work, the further out you go the less unqualified a commitment can be, but its very strong in terms of the political commitment by donors to keep IDA whole," Wolfowitz said. Earlier on Wednesday, in a speech to the National Press Club in Washington, DC, Wolfowitz said the debt relief would allow countries to spend more on basic services.

Separately, the news agency notes, the IMF has called a briefing for Thursday on the implementation of its side of the debt relief initiative, launched by the Group of Eight industrialized countries. The debt cancellation would cover countries such as Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Zambia, Uganda, Tanzania, Senegal, Rwanda, Mali, Guyana, Honduras, Madagascar, Ethiopia, Ghana, Uganda, Mauritania, Mozambique and Nicaragua.

In related news, The Guardian (UK) reports that aid agencies today step up their campaign for Britain to return GBP1.7 billion in debt relief paid to the Treasury by Nigeria as part of a deal agreed earlier this year to free itself of its international creditors. In a letter to the Guardian, the heads of nine leading UK development organizations said they were "dismayed" at Britain receiving twice as much from West Africa's biggest economy than it was handing out in aid to the whole of the continent. Government sources insisted last night that the money would not be handed back, adding that the intervention of the UK charities could wreck a deal brokered by Britain to give Nigeria a fresh start. The letter added that Nigeria had been praised by the World Bank for its willingness to use debt relief for poverty reduction. notas_de_prensa_archivo