Getting there

As much as debt relief has been talked about over the past year, it still isn't a fait accompli. But today, the IMF took a huge step in making sure that the agreement actually leads to relief:

An agreement Friday among finance officials of the world's seven wealthiest industrial countries should clear the way for final approval by IMF and World Bank leaders to the debt relief program, Treasury Secretary John Snow said...

The outlines of the deal were settled on world leaders at an economic summit meeting in Scotland in July. But Belgium, the Netherlands and others said the rich countries were not making sufficient commitments to replace the money that the IMF and World Bank would forego.

Finance officials from the Group of Seven countries, joined by Russia's finance minister, pledged in a letter to Wolfowitz to "cover the full cost to offset dollar for dollar" the loan repayments the World Bank would lose.

Kudos to all the states involved. Now that it's (relatively) clear where the money is coming from, there shouldn't be much problem in making sure that the debt-relief program can operate as planned.