The HIPC Intitiative : The Goals, Additionality, Eligibility, and Debt Sustainability

The Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative has identified the cycle of debt rescheduling and restructurings of many of the poorest countries as a serious development problem. It has mobilized the lender community to restructure loans with the aim of generating debt sustainability: the elimination of chronic debt repayment problems. The initiative encourages much more coordination among the community of lenders, in particular between the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). It also calls for much greater transparency and involvement of the civil community than has occurred before. The initiative has introduced new and much improved measurements of the debt burdens of developing countries.