Debt relief

Debt Relief is the partial or total forgiveness of debt, or the slowing or stopping of debt growth, owed by heavily indebted and underdeveloped Third World nations. Debt relief is a heavily-championed cause among AIDS activists and humanitarian organizations because of the economic structural adjustment reforms, such as privatization of public utilities, imposed by the International Monetary Fund as a condition for monetary relief, and because, given runaway debt growth, governments of heavily-indebted countries often spend more money paying down spiralling interest than on social programs such as public health.

See also International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Anti-globalization movement.

External Links

• Debt Relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, International Monetary Fund (http://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/facts/hipc.htm).
• Debt Relief for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries, World Bank (http://www.worldbank.org/hipc/).
• Debt Relief International, Development Finance Group (http://www.dri.org.uk/pages/homeen).
• Jubilee Research at New Economics Foundation (http://www.jubilee2000uk.org/).