Sir, - Even though oil prices and the troubles of the euro dominated much of the discussion among finance ministers at the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Prague, the debt crisis which causes 19,000 child deaths every day has not gone away. Neither will the Jubilee 2000 movement for debt cancellation.
Only weeks ago, at a special millennium summit, the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, called upon donor countries and the international financial institutions to consider writing off all the official debts of 40 heavily indebted poor countries.
Tanzania and Zambia are two countries which amply illustrate the severe deficiencies in the Heavily Indebted Poor Country Initiative (HIPC), established by the IMF and World Bank back in 1996. Tanzania, even with HIPC debt relief, will still spend on average $160 million a year on debt servicing. This is more than it spends on education and almost twice its expenditure on health. This year Ireland Aid has committed nearly £8 million in funding for bilateral aid projects in Tanzania, so for every £1 of Irish aid received, £20 comes back in debt repayments to creditors, including the IMF and the World Bank.
In the case of Zambia, to which Ireland Aid allocated £6 million in bilateral aid last year, debt repayments will actually rise very sharply by about $75 million a year. This is because large loans taken out from the IMF in the early 1990s have become due for payment. The IMF has agreed to re-examine its case. Action is urgently needed. Zambia's human development needs are chronic, not least for resources to tackle the AIDS crisis in a country where life expectancy has dropped to 40.5 years.
In Prague, Mr Charlie McCreevy supported a call by his Canadian counterpart, Paul Martin, for a moratorium on some debt payments. He needs to go much further by supporting the cancellation of unpayable debts including those owed to the World Bank and IMF. - Yours, etc.,
Maura Leen, Policy Analyst, Trocaire, Blackrock, Co Dublin.