Clare Short, UK Secretary of State for International Development, has called in parliament for the reform of the IMF’s ESAF loans to make them pro-poor.
Debt
Conditionality
News
Initiative changes
The G7 have agreed changes to the Heavily Indebted Poor Country Debt Initiative which will impose more conditionality in return for earlier relief from interest payments.
Accountability
News
Curbing corruption
IMF policies have exacerbated corruption according to a Christian Aid briefing on new approaches to debt relief.
Finance
News
ESAF-HIPC Link Attacked
Mr Jagdeo, Guayanese Finance Minister, has attacked the IMF for its lack of commitment to debt reduction and using the HIPC Initiative as a means of forcing countries to comply with ESAF programmes.
Finance
News
“New debt crisis”
Investors’ growing aversion to risk is leading to a general withdrawal of finance from many Southern countries.
Finance
News
Preventing private sector debt crises
In addition to extending the IMF’s role, its governors have been examining measures to prevent future financial sector crises.
Finance
News
Loan costs set to rise
Borrowers from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the main World Bank lending arm, may have to pay higher charges for their loans in the future.
Finance
News
J2000 mobilise 70,000
An estimated 70,000 people demonstrated in Birmingham to call on G8 leaders to cancel poor countries’ unpayable debts.
Finance
News
Nicaraguan civil society fears delay in debt process
Nicaraguan civil society organisations (CSOs) fear Nicaragua will not qualify for the HIPC Debt Initiative before the population has suffered further.
Featured briefings
6 April 2023
World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings 2023
5 April 2023
The IMF at the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: The need for governance reform
As the world celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is time the IMF’s shareholders use the opportunities provided by the anniversary and growing calls for reforms to the international financial architecture to redesign the IMF’s governance structures and programmes to ensure they are consistent with the commitments outlined in 1948 and with international human rights law.
5 April 2023
The global financial architecture and the international debt crisis: An urgent call for reform
Influence of unreformed international financial institutions and creditor interests in debt solutions in low- and middle-income countries plagued by delay and ineffective when undertaken.