Without flexibility, the earliest any HIPC candidate would have seen relief would have been autumn 2002.Mozambique has now become the test case for the seriousness of the international community's commitment to debt relief.
The renewed commitment to debt relief is a significant victory for a coalition of religious, charity and pressure groups worldwide that helped put debt relief on the world agenda several years ago.
request to reallocate some of its gold reserves to support the monetary fund's own commitment to debt relief, an accounting change that the fund says would free $570 million to relieve poor nations' debt.
"Providing an upfront, unconditional component to debt relief is critical to provide a strong and credible signal to markets about the commitment of official creditors to ensuring debt sustainability, which in itself could contribute to lowering market financing costs.
From tax justice to debt relief, this is their power.
From environmental policy to debt relief, NGOs are at the centre of World Bank policy.
More disturbing is the fact that some rich countries, notably the United States, have not yet made good on their commitments to finance debt relief.
For its part, Greece appears to be insisting it will not sign any deal unless it contains a commitment to official debt relief, while the creditors say they will only start discussing debt rescheduling once a deal is signed and implemented.
Ministers from the seven nations -- Germany, France, Italy, Britain, the United States, Japan and Canada -- also reaffirmed their commitment to a debt relief initiative for poor countries.
We must ensure that the Group of Seven summit in May deals with their problems, not least by reaffirming our commitment to accelerated debt relief for reforming countries.Indeed, the global effects of the Asian turmoil make it all the more urgent to speed up the process of debt relief started under the initiative for heavily indebted poorer countries.
