G8 Summit 2007 Heiligendamm

Summit theme debt relief

Print view

Context

The financial situation of the developing countries has repeatedly occupied the G8. On its initiative, increased efforts have been made to restore the manoeuvring room of these countries.

Cologne 1999

The G8 committed itself to debt relief for heavily indebted developing countries. The Cologne Debt Initiative strengthened the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) framework. For the first time, debts owed to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were also cancelled.

The Initiative was designed to provide deeper, broader and faster debt relief, and to link this more closely to the fight against poverty The G8 committed itself to work for debt relief of up to 90 per cent. The total volume of debt was to be halved by 2015.
Top

Okinawa 2000

Nine countries (Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Honduras, Mauretania, Mozambique, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda) have qualified for access to the HIPC initiative and are benefiting from the first debt relief.

The total extent of debt relief in the context of the HIPC initiative for these countries nominally amounts to more than 15 billion US dollars.
Top

Genoa 2001

The heads of state and government of the G8 are again able to announce a success in the implementation of the Cologne initiative. In the meantime 23 countries in all are participating in the debt relief programme.
Top

Kananaskis 2002

26 countries have qualified for the programme, which means that debts of almost 40 billion US dollars (almost 2/3 of the total amount) can be waived.

In order to ensure that this initiative can continue to operate, the G8 lobby the IMF and the World Bank for further cooperation with regional development organisations.
Top

Evian 2003

By 2003 a total of around 60 billion US dollars of debt has been waived for the qualified countries. The heads of state and government have continued to call for private creditors to waive their debts too.
Top

Sea Island 2004

The G8 encourage international financial organisations and creditors to extend the HIPC initiative to 31st December 2006. This will enable the necessary funding to be guaranteed so that the initiative can be concluded by 2015.
Top

Gleneagles 2005

The G8's initiative and its agreement to fund a Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative led to further debt cancellations. The following year, the International Monetary Fund, the International Development Association (part of the World Bank Group) and the African Development Fund decided to cancel all the existing debt of Heavily Indebted Poor Countries that had successfully completed the HIPC Initiative process.
Top

German contribution

Around 40 billion US dollars of debt has been waived for the countries which have qualified up to now for the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative. The Federal Republic is going to raise around 3.9 billion US dollars of financing to replace the debt servicing which is consequently no longer flowing back to the World Bank and the African Development Fund.

In terms of the HIPC initiative: a total of around 70 billion US dollars of debt has been waived. Germany is going to waive debts of 6.5 billion euros in total. By the end of 2005, 2.7 billion had already been converted into debt relief. When all the relief which has been announced has been concluded, almost all the HIPC countries will be free of debt towards Germany.

By the end of 2002 Germany had paid a total of 254.7 million euros directly or via the European Union into the World Bank’s HIPC trust fund.