by JIM LOBE
WASHINGTON, Apr 4, 2011 (IPS) – Nearly 60 international civil society organisations urged the executive board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Monday to earmark some 2.8 billion dollars in profits from the agency’s gold sales for cancelling the debts of the world’s poorest nations.
In a joint statement, the groups, which included ActionAid International, Oxfam International, the International Trade Union Confederation, and the global Jubilee networks, said the profits should be used to help poor indebted countries weather external shocks, including the 2008-2009 financial crisis and, more recently, the sharp rise in global food and fuel prices.
“We urge the IMF Executive Board to expand the criteria for the Fund’s new Post-Catastrophe Debt Relief Trust Fund to provide debt relief without harmful conditions to countries in crisis, and use the gold sales proceeds to fund it,” according to the statement, which was also signed by the African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (AFNDD), the Bretton Woods Project, and the Latin American Network on Debt and Development.
The Trust Fund, which was launched last June to help Haiti recover from its devastating earthquake in January 2010, provides for a two-year moratorium on debt service payments owed to the IMF. It also authorises the cancellation of all IMF debt stock for poor countries that face catastrophic disasters.
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