SJC applauds Canada's change of position and support of debt relief plan for 19 Third World countries

Montreal - 22 Dec. 2005 - The Social Justice Committee welcomes the decision by the Department of Finance to support complete debt relief, without delay or further conditions, at a meeting of the IMF Board of Directors yesterday.

The IMF Board agreed to provide full relief to 19 of 20 countries that were eligible. The SJC also welcomes the provision of debt relief to Cambodia and Tajikistan, which are not classified as Heavily Indebted and Poor and thus have not been eligible for debt relief previously. They were included in this program, the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative, because they fall under its US$380 per capita income threshold.

This reverses the position taken by the Canadian Executive Director's office at the IMF, which had been ready to support delaying debt relief to 6 countries. The delays were recommended by IMF staff because of slippage from IMF targets in macroeconomic and fiscal policies.

Mauritania is the only country facing delays, largely because its government is considered to have provided inaccurate information to the IMF in order to get debt relief.

"The Canadian government deserves our thanks, and the gratitude of the people in the affected countries, for helping ensure the relief will be immediate and unconditional," said Derek MacCuish, SJC Coordinator. "The cancellation of IMF and World Bank debt is long overdue, and this is a welcome decision. Now the institutions need to move quickly to expand the relief for other impoverished and deserving nations."

Countries that will receive debt relief in early January are Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guyana, Honduras, Madagascar, Mali, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.


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