wfn.org | Haiti: G7 debt relief welcome, IMF should follow suit

["WCC Media" <Media@wcc-coe.org>]

>>>> Annegret Kapp 08/02/2010 18:10 PM >>
>Contact: + 41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363
>media@wcc-coe.org

WCC commends G7 relief of Haiti's debt, asks IMF to follow
suitFor immediate release: 08 February 2010

The World Council of Churches (WCC) has welcomed the initiative
by the seven most industrialized nations (G7), which pledged this
past weekend to write Haiti's debts with them off. In a letter
from the WCC general secretary, the Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, the
WCC also asked for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and
other international financial institutions to follow the G7
example and make sure financial support to Haiti is "grant-based
and not debt-creating". 

Tveit welcomed and expressed appreciation for the G7 initiative
in an 8 February letter to the finance minister of Canada, James
M. Flaherty, who recently hosted the G7 meeting in Canada.
Letters of appreciation were also sent to the finance ministers
of France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom and the United
States. Tveit expressed hope that the G7 move will "encourage
other countries and multilateral institutions to commit to the
unconditional cancellation of Haiti's debts". 

On 12 January Haiti's capital city Port-Au-Prince was hit by an
earthquake that reportedly killed an estimated 200,000 people,
injured some 250,000, and made 1.5 million homeless. 

In regard to the IMF, Tveit shared his concern that "more loans"
from the institution will add "to Haitis burden". He regretted
that the IMF has not shown "clear willingness" nor made
"definitive moves yet to cancel the country's current debt". 

On 20 January IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said the
institution was "working with all donors to try to delete all the
Haitian debt", including the IMF's latest interest-free loan of
$100 million. "If we succeed and I'm sure we will succeed even
this loan will turn out to be finally a grant, because all the
debt will have been deleted", Strauss-Kahn said. 

Since then, IMF officials have shown far less enthusiasm than
their boss. On 27 January, IMF mission chief for Haiti Corinne
Deléchat made debt relief dependant on a disaster needs
assessment to be done in February and said debt relief can
achieve "little in comparison of the needs". 

On 4 February, IMF external relations director Caroline Atkinson
said debt relief "is not a today issue" on the grounds that
"Haiti owes the IMF no debt service now and will not for at least
two years". 

In his letter to the G7 ministers Tveit reiterated the WCC call
"for the immediate and full cancellation of Haiti's foreign debt
as the quake-stricken country needs a broader plan to support
recovery, poverty eradication and sustainable development". 

He also called on international financial institutions to "take
urgent measures to cancel Haitis debts" and to make sure that
"all financial support to Haiti be grant-based and non-debt
creating". 

Tveit reiterated the commitment of the ecumenical family to
Haiti's long-term needs. Churches and church-related
organizations around the world have participated in relief
efforts since the disaster, particularly through the ACT
Alliance, a global ecumenical grouping of churches and related
agencies working on emergency relief and development and a
partner organization of the WCC. 

Full text of the WCC letter to G7 finance ministers
http://www.oikoumene.org/?id=2267

WCC member churches in Haiti and ecumenical response
http://www.oikoumene.org/id=2267

More information about the relief provided by the ACT Alliance
http://www.oikoumene.org/?id=2267

Background information on Haiti's foreign debt
http://www.oikoumene.org/?id=2267 

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith,
witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical
fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings
together 349 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches
representing more than 560 million Christians in over 110
countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic
Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit,
from the [Lutheran] Church of Norway. Headquarters: Geneva,
Switzerland.