Eighteen of the world's poorest countries will have their debts to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund wiped out as part of a $55bn (£30.4bn) package agreed today by the G7 leading economies.
After weeks of intense negotiations, a deal brokered by the chancellor, Gordon Brown, will save countries such as Mozambique and Ethiopia a total of $15bn in debt payments over the next 10 years.
Kudos to all parties for getting the deal done, and particularly to Brown for putting the process together.
On a less positive note, a large "what the hell?" to the IMF:
Sources said last night that the logjam had been broken when it was found that the IMF had several billion dollars available from gold sales in the late 1990s that it could use to cover the losses it would make from writing off debts.
The agency that's done so much to dictate Third World policy can't even keep track of several billion dollars of its own money? I suppose it could be worse - at least the money was put to good use, and hopefully the debt relief will allow more states to stay out from under the IMF's thumb in the future.
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