INTRODUCTION
This paper looks at the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) a project by the IMF and World Bank.
DEBT RELIEF KEY TO POVERTY REDUCTION
The World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) with its view that no poor country faces a debt burden that it cannot manage, came up with an initiative in 1996 called HIPC initiative. Since then, the International financial community and the multilateral organizations and governments have worked tirelessly together to reduce external debt to sustain levels for the many Highly Indebted Poor Countries. The World Bank and its partner IMF believes that poverty reduction will come by reducing debt levels of the country.
NEGATIVE OUTCOMES OF HIPC INITIATIVES ON ZAMBIA
The World Bank and the IMF, almost always put conditions to members states to access financial assistance. HIPC countries like Zambia were not an exceptional.
Four conditions were put in place for HIPC to meet, this includes:
1. be eligible to borrow from the World Bank 's International Development Agency.
2. Face an unsustainable debt burden, that cannot be sustain through traditional mechanism debt relief.
3. Have established a track record of reforms and sound policies.
4. Develop a Poverty Reduction Strategic Paper
The technicalities behind the above conditions came at a price, which to date, a little of progress has been seen. Civic leaders under the leadership of President Levy Mwanawasa of the Republic of Zambia, were on each other 's tails.
After Zambia gained political independence their economy was doing better. Their economy was surrounded around their primary natural resource, copper. As copper sales went up, new medical buildings and schools were built, they had a promising textile industry and things were looking up. Until an unexpected rise in the price of oil in tandem with the dropping prices of copper forced Zambia to borrow from the IMF and world banks at extremely high interest rates. Soon Zambia found itself in a mountain of unpayable debts and to repay creditors, spending was cut to education and health and other infrastructure projects. Eventually all of the progress they have made goes to waste as it can not be maintained. Foreign countries currently dictate the economic policy via structural adjustment, i.e. policies that “should” increase revenue and allow them to pay the loans off. This inevitably leads to a country that is so dependent on foreign aid because their own industries have been destroyed by foreign influences.
We addressed our concerns towards the efficiency of this resolution as we proposed a motion that is ensuring the efficiency of the financial aid use in improving health service and infrastructure in vulnerable nations. As the delegate of Congo started as the first speaker, she stated in her speech that cooperation with Anti-Corruption agencies should be enforced in order to monitor the expenditure of financial aid as well as enforcement of laws from those agencies. The delegate of Venezuela took consideration of the correlation of this topic that can be elaborated on QARMA number 3 regarding governmental responsibility on this issue. Some delegates also added that those financial aids should be more transparent by making financial reports that will later on be published by the WHO for reliability that could be viewed publicly. While the delegate of United Kingdom proposes a solution to hold a minimum development requirement for countries granted financial aid, by doing so it could ensure that the use of financial aids are efficiently used. While the others have the same opinions, as they are convinced that there needs to be cooperation with other UN bodies such as the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (EcoFin) having a role to do the
Due to capital limitations, most governments, particularly in the developing nations borrow funds from their bilateral friends and organizations such as World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) in earnest to enable them pursue development projects, and sometimes to correct balance-of-payment deficits. Nevertheless, such governments must adhere to some outlined conditions that are spelt out in the article of agreement in order for them to secure the loans; otherwise, the loans are withheld (White, 2012). Equally, a healthy population significantly contributes to economic development of
IMF/ World Bank: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group's International Development Association (IDA) agreed this week to support a comprehensive debt reduction package for Honduras under the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. The debt relief package will save Honduras more than US$900 million in debt service over the coming years, and is equal to US$556 million in net present value (NPV) terms.
Even though a lot of countries have their own debts, cancelling debts can lead to the future issues. The nations in debts need to pay back what they owed because that is the money they lent, not given. Since the third world countries owed money and loan from the World Bank, they have to take responsibility to repay. Moreover, the debt cancellation can only encourage developing countries to borrow money again and find themselves in debts again due to the fact that they do not expect to pay back their debt. However, these argument tend not to be extremely persuasive because we already explore the advantages or good impacts of debt forgiveness, which in fact save many poor citizens’ lives stay away from poverty. Indeed, the third world countries will never have chance to pay back their debt because the interest is so high and the debts keep
This never-ending cycle of debt is the reality for most, if not all of Third World countries. In the 1970’s, Western banks loaned out huge sums of money to Third World nations with the intention of one day making profit. And they succeeded.
Harvard Business School’s Case Study “Aid, Debt Relief, and Trade: An agenda for fighting World Poverty” outlines the steps, and missteps, that the world community has taken since World War II to address the efficacy of international assistance. The study focuses on international financial institutions (IFIs) and their ability to help poor nations break out of poverty and the possible obligations of rich, developed countries to assist the heavily indebted poor countries (HIPCs). Additionally, the study seeks to see if this assistance has been and can be parlayed into growth and investment for the HIPCs.
One of the major causes of poverty throughout the world is National Debt. Also known as public debt, national debt is defined as “the total financial obligations of the central government of a nation usually in the form of interest-bearing government bonds” (National debt 2015). International debt is complex challenge in magnitude with poverty affecting the welfare of millions of people, in many countries all over the world. However at the same time international debt does not only affect those in the country but rather affects many international and private sources of financial institutions. National debt presents many moral challenge
Debt becoming a dominating factor over the lives of individuals and then up to the businesses who can not manage properly. Without proper management of resources in both personal and business scenarios will lead to a more complicated way of resolving problems and in the end will only create more. Debt has become more and more complicated and expensive over the past few years. In response there then leads to more and more financial problems due to debt.
Total indebted areas were major in Developing countries or known as third world could be devided in three groups: Latin America, East Asian and Sub-Sahara
This research paper is focused on the role World Bank in Poverty Reduction, as the primary role of the World Bank is to enable development and progress in the backward countries and regions of this world. This paper explains the brief history of the World Bank, and World Bank’s five institutions. It also investigates how the World Bank is continually trying to reduce poverty by lending billions of dollars to poor countries .This paper gives some of the facts of the under-developed countries and the strategies which World Bank has incorporated to reduce the poverty in those countries.
One of the things that I am most proud of is the fact that I overcame poverty in a third world country and I am now living in the U.S., going to college as an honors student with a 4.00 GPA, leading the Honors Club for the current academic year, and leading my own community project.
Lack of medical aid also affects the country badly. An ill and uneducated workforce forms the basis of a weak, demoralised nation. These factors also lead to poverty. Frequently, when a country in the developing world is struggling economically they appeal for aid from organisations like the international monetary fund or the World Bank.
Most of the developing countries are mired deeply in economical obstacles, which prevent them from development significantly. In order to overcome those embarrassments world’s society struggles to find the efficient solution for poor countries’ economies. Historically, developed countries undertook policy of giving aid to their colonies, afterwards by the end of The Second World War the United States and United Nations embarked the global sponsorship to the developing countries and countries of the Third World due to humanitarian considerations. Since then many other countries have joined in the effort to provide financial aid to lesser developed or poverty ridden countries. But none of those countries that received an aid had experienced a prosperity phase and rapid economic growth.
The effects of poverty have been around for hundreds of years; as it is apparent within third world countries like North Korea, Sudan, and Somalia. Third world countries are not the only ones that are affected due to poverty first world countries like Australia, The United States of America, and Canada also face poverty. The definition of poverty is very controversial as every country has a different poverty line, due to the finical status of the country. The most commonly used definition for poverty is someone that is lacking a significant amount of money from which they cannot pay for necessities, such as food and shelter. Which could lead to those in poverty becoming obese through having a heaving sugar based diet, buying packaged food, and having fast-food frequently due to how cheap it is. It could eventually lead to many gaining life threatening diseases, such as diabetes at different severities. Due to being in poverty many are unable to gain health insurance, and the proper care to reduce the impact that diabetes has on their day to day lives.