[stop-imf] Communique by the African Governors at the IMF

[Robert Weissman]

April 15, 2005
Communique by the African Governors at the IMF

Excerpts:

1. The Governors believe that the progress in streamlining Fund program
conditionality remains short of expectations and that there is a
tendency to impose politically sensitive and legally protracted prior
actions, which makes it difficult to keep programs on track.

6. Concerning the debt issue, the African Governors noted that countries
that have reached the completion point are falling back into the debt
trap due to external shocks, and that topping-up is becoming more
common. They called for a framework that will allow for a complete
write-off of external debt at the HIPC process completion point, and for
the Fund to support the G-7 consideration for a write-off of all debts
of low-income countries (LICs) to multilateral institutions. They also
underscored the necessity to pay closer attention to the needs of
middle-income countries, many of which exhibit similar characteristics
as LICs, particularly on social indicators and unsustainable levels of
external debt.

10. Finally, the African Governors noted that the Fund's image in Africa
is declining, especially given that people are not seeing poverty
declining following implementation of PRGFs and also benefiting from the
HIPC Initiative.

Full text:
http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2005/pr0588.htm