Political Quotes

“I urge the President to support the complete cancellation of the debts that the world's poorest countries owe the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The Enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, referred to as HIPC, was developed in 1999 to provide debt relief to the world's poorest countries. The HIPC Initiative requires countries to invest the savings from debt relief in HIV-AIDS treatment and prevention, health care, education, and poverty reduction programs. Unfortunately, the IMF and the World Bank have not provided their fair share of debt relief. While the United States agreed to cancel 100 percent of the debts owed by poor countries, the IMF and the World Bank have agreed to reduce these countries' debts by less than half. As a result, the countries that have begun to receive debt relief have seen their debt payments reduced by an average of only 27 percent. Most of these countries are still spending more money on debt payments than they are on health care.”