John Gormley
Question:180 Mr. Gormley asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the current position on the cancellation of IMF and World Bank debt. [25742/00]
Written Answers. - Third World Debt.
Thirty-six countries are expected to qualify for assistance under the World Bank and IMF's enhanced heavily indebted poor countries debt relief initiative, HIPC. Thus far, eleven countries have qualified for relief under the enhanced framework – Benin, Burkina Faso, Bolivia, Cameroon, Honduras, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda – with total committed assistance estimated at roughly US$18 billion. Côte d'Ivoire, Mali and Guyana had already qualified under the original framework. By the end of 2000 it is hoped that up to one half of the 40 HIPC countries will be eligible for debt relief under the enhanced HIPC. Some of the remainder cannot meet the qualification criteria because of civil strife. When completed, it is expected the HIPC initiative will deliver more than US$50 billion in debt service relief to eligible countries.
Since the World Bank and IMF's meeting in Cologne in September 1999, a number of major creditor countries have announced their willingness to write off 100% of the debts owed to them by countries qualifying for enhanced HIPC debt relief. In July of this year, the EU announced a contribution of over 1 billion to debt relief efforts. The contribution is a timely and crucial step forward in a concerted international effort to remove the burden of unsustainable debt. The majority of the contribution – 734 million – is directed to the HIPC Trust Fund, of which 300 million is being made available immediately. This contribution by the EU is the single largest, equalling roughly one-third of the total amount pledged to date by all donors. Of the more than 1 billion contribution, 680 million will be directed to the trust fund to help multilateral creditors provide debt relief to HIPCs which are members of the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) arrangement with the EU. Another 54 million will be made available to the trust fund for countries in Latin America and Asia which are not ACP members. Finally, 348 million will be used to reduce debt owed directly to the EU.
Although not a bilateral creditor of the developing countries, Ireland strongly welcomes measures, whether through debt relief or debt cancellation, aimed at easing the burden. At the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Prague in September, the Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy, supported calls for all bilateral creditors to implement an immediate moratorium on bilateral debt repayments for the world's heavily indebted poor countries, stating that an immediate debt moratorium would free up resources for heavily indebted countries to spend on urgent social priorities and poverty reduction strategies.
Ireland has already contributed US$15 millions to the HIPC Trust Fund. We have also provided assistance of IR£9.5 millions directly to a number of heavily indebted countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Ireland is also responsible for a proportionate share of the EU contribution of 1 billion to the Enhanced HIPC Initiative. Our share is about 6 million.
The Taoiseach's recent announcement at the UN Millennium Summit of the Government's commitment to achieving the UN target of 0.7% of GNP for ODA in 2007 and an interim target of 0.45% in 2002 should enable us to devote more resources to deal with the debt issue both bilaterally and multilaterally.