Creditors must take responsibility for being part of the cause for this crisis. During the cold war our government and other lenders loaned to many countries for purely political purposes. Loans went to corrupt leaders for no clear development purpose. Yes, debt relief comes at a cost to creditors, but perhaps this is a debt we owe as well. Additionally, because the United States expects to collect only a fraction of the value of the original loan, the debts can be written off at a significant discount. About $1 billion from the United States would leverage nearly $100 billion in debt relief for poor countries over the next four years.

It's critically important that Congress appropriate more funding for debt relief, and soon. There is not enough money in the World Bank's Highly Indebted Poor Countries Trust Fund to cover the countries eligible for debt relief this year. Several creditor nations' pledges are contingent on the US contribution. In order to make sure that indebted countries don't have to wait until October 2000 to start getting relief, President Clinton has asked Congress to include money for debt cancellation in its supplemental budget. He has also included a request in the FY2001 budget to cover the additional funds needed until FY2003. Approval of the full $810 million could bring debt relief to as many as thirty-three countries by 2003. The ideal would be both to expand this list and to deepen the level of debt cancellation, but fulfilling the commitments made in Cologne is a critical first step.

On March 30 the House passed a $12.7 billion emergency supplemental appropriation, with $7.7 billion more than the Administration requested. It included funding for Colombian drug wars, Kosovo peacekeeping, North Carolina flood relief and healthcare benefits for military personnel, but not a dime for debt relief. It does not look like debt relief will be in the Senate version, either. Some members of Congress have tried to explain this by questioning whether it is an emergency. Mozambique's condition certainly refutes that interpretation.

Further distracting attention from debt relief is debate on the Congressionally appointed Meltzer commission's recommendations for major changes to the IMF, World Bank and regional development-banking system. Congress's focus on reforming the international financial architecture, while important, comes at the expense of attention to debt relief. We would remind Congress that one of the commission's few unanimous recommendations was that debt cancellation for the world's poorest countries by all the international financial institutions should be a priority. Eleven countries are expected to be eligible for debt relief within the next two months, but they won't get anything until Congress appropriates its share of the package. The people who suffer the most from this delay are the most vulnerable people in the world--the victims of devastating floods in Mozambique, rural farmers in Uganda, schoolchildren in Bolivia.

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