The G-8 Debt Cancellation Proposal and Its Implications for the Fund - Further Considerations

Policy Papers ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 2005 (68) ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
International Development ◽  
Poor Country ◽  
International Development Association ◽  
Development Fund ◽  
African Development ◽  
Debt Cancellation ◽  
Hipc Initiative ◽  
Heads Of State

The G-8 has proposed that the Fund, the International Development Association, and the African Development Fund cancel 100 percent of their claims on countries having reached, or upon reaching, the completion point under the enhanced Heavily Indebt Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative. The proposal was initially presented to the G-8 Finance Ministers' Conclusions on Development issued on June 11, 2005, and reaffirmed in the statement on Africa signed by G-8 Heads of State and Government at the Gleneagles Summit on July 8, 2005.

Department of the Treasury

1978 ◽  
Vol 8 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 74-74
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
Development Bank ◽  
Member States ◽  
Development Fund ◽  
African Development ◽  
African Development Bank ◽  
Development Banks ◽  
The U.S

The Department of the Treasury has a limited involvement in Africa through the United States’ membership in the African Development Fund (AFDF) which the Treasury oversees. Members of the Fund are seventeen non-regional donor countries and the African Development Bank, representing its forty-five member states. The U.S. joined the Fund in November, 1975 with an initial contribution of $15 million or 4 per cent of $340 million pledged to AFDF as of April, 1977. The Administration has asked Congress to appropriate an additional $10 million in the FY 1978 budget. This figure represents 0.38 per cent of the funds requested by Treasury for international development banks in FY 1978 and 0.033 per cent of the Treasury’s total requested budget.

scholarly journals The Effectiveness of Debt Relief: Assessing the Influence of the HIPC Initiative and MDRI on Tanzania’s Health Sector

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 31-44
Author(s):  
Fernando Oggier
Keyword(s):  
Mortality Rate ◽  
Health Outcomes ◽  
International Development ◽  
Poor Country ◽  
External Debt ◽  
Health Financing ◽  
Graphical Analysis ◽  
Debt Relief ◽  
Development Aid ◽  
Hipc Initiative

Debt relief initiatives have been part of the international development sphere since the early 1990s. With the launch of the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative in 1996 and the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) in 2005 many countries have been able to successfully qualify for debt relief. Tanzania has been one of the primary beneficiaries of debt relief over the years. While empirical evidence demonstrates that the country’s economic growth has been positively impacted by debt relief initiatives, other aspects of human development need to be analyzed to ensure a comprehensive assessment of the HIPC Initiative and the MDRI. This study compiles Tanzania’s health data into a composite indicator to perform a graphical analysis to compare the trends between health outcomes and external debt. The graphical analysis is contextualized through a qualitative analysis of political, economic and health financing literature from the Bank of Tanzania, UNICEF and USAID. The results indicate that there health outcomes improved throughout the whole study’s time period particularly after the HIPC Initiative. The health financing literature also points to increased development expenditure during this period. Nonetheless, the effects of debt relief seem to diminish in the long-term due to fluctuations in external donors and logistical barriers to budget execution. Tanzania also continues to face socio-economic and geographic disparities in health outcomes and funding. Some of the literature also states that the country’s weak system of checks and balances and the lack of robust institutions could cause opportunistic policy preferences that might not necessarily improve Tanzania’s health outcomes. KEYWORDS: Child Mortality Rate; Debt Relief; External Debt; Heavily Indebted Poor Country Initiative; International Monetary Fund; Life Expectancy; Maternal Mortality Rate; Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative; Official Development Aid; Prevalence of Undernourishment

Can foreign aid motivate institutional reform? An evaluation of the HIPC Initiative

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 242-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Minh Tam Schlosky ◽  
Andrew Young
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Developing Economies ◽  
Poor Country ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
Institutional Reform ◽  
Institutional Quality ◽  
Entrepreneurial Activity ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Hipc Initiative

Purpose A number of political economy concerns are associated with the provision of foreign aid to developing economies. These concerns suggest that foreign aid is likely to have harmful effects on a recipient’s institutional quality, and that attempts to give aid conditional on policy and institutional reforms are unlikely to succeed. Established in 1996, the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative is a comprehensive, structured attempt to provide multilateral foreign aid conditional on reforms in recipient countries. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate its effectiveness at affecting institutional reform in participating countries. Design/methodology/approach The authors document how participating countries fared in terms of the quality of their policies and institutions. The authors employ the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World index as a measure of economic institutions, and the Freedom House political rights (PR) and civil liberties indices as measures of PR and protections. Based on these measures, the authors report unconditional statistics (e.g. average changes) and also regressions of changes in the measures on HIPC Initiative aid allocations and other controls. Findings The authors find that most participating countries experienced either meager increases or outright decreases in institutional quality. The regression results provide no evidence that the Initiative affects meaningful reforms. Originality/value The potential for foreign aid to have deleterious effects on the institutional quality of recipient countries has been of increasing concern to students of economic development. Such effects can have important implications for entrepreneurial activity in these countries. The HIPC Initiative is specifically designed to acknowledge and, indeed, overcome these concerns, leading to actual increases in institutional quality of recipient countries. To the authors’ knowledge, this work is the first to assess whether the promise of the HIPC Initiative is being fulfilled.

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