Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, structured, responsible debt relief has been proven to be one of the most effective methods of fighting global poverty. In 1996 the World Bank and the IMF, the International Monetary Fund, developed the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries, or HIPC, Initiative to provide debt relief to the world's most impoverished nations. The 28 countries that participated in this program have been spending the debt relief on good things in their country for the very poor people, on education and health. In the first 10 years of the program, the IMF and the World Bank provided $62 billion of debt relief, cutting the countries' debt by an average of two-thirds. The results speak for themselves. The participating countries now spend four times as much on health, education, and social services as they do on paying back debt. Tanzania, for instance, has used its money from debt cancellation to eliminate school fees for elementary school education. Think about it.…”