Oxfam International Submission to the Heavily Indebted Poor County (HIPC) Debt Review

Overview

Three years after its inception, the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative has failed to resolve the debt crisis in the world’s poorest countries. Early promise has given way to disappointment. Without a concerted international effort to provide earlier and deeper debt relief, and to integrate debt reduction into wider poverty reduction initiatives, the HIPC initiative will join the long line of failed debt relief strategies; and debt will continue to destroy the potential for human development into the next millennium.