Sustained pressure from campaigners has helped win $37 billion of cancellation of poor countries' debts to the World Bank, and prevent unacceptable delays in delivering the cancellation.
The cancellation is part of the overall package promised by the G8 at their 2005 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, which is known as the
Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative. The World Bank part is providing by far the bulk of the cancellation, and could eventually total up to $37 billion.
Over the last month, Jubilee campaigners in the UK and worldwide have been sending emails to protest that the Bank's plan for cancellation would have forced poor countries to wait up to 15 months after qualifying for the debt cancellation before actually getting it - and meanwhile continuing to make debt payments. At the last minute, the World Bank's Executive Board overturned this plan: now the longest any country will have to wait is 3 months.
Thank you to those who kept the pressure up! This follows a similar success in persuading the
IMF not to exclude countries from debt cancellation.
