UK goes even further in helping to lift the debt burden
We also give debt relief for the poorest countries that are not benefiting from the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative if they will use this to help poor people. Under the UK Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (UK MDRI), 12 countries are eligible to receive assistance with their debt service to multilateral banks. To date, the UK has provided over £58 million under this initiative. This has helped countries to use money that would otherwise have gone to service debt to build more schools, hospitals and roads. In the case of Vietnam, it has supported residents in two very poor provinces to recover from severe flood in 2007. The £3 million were used to repair houses and rebuild schools, roads and irrigation systems.
The UK has also cancelled aid loans of the poorest countries, back in the 1970s and 1980s. Since 1997, middle income Commonwealth countries with outstanding aid debts are also able to get relief if we are convinced that they will spend the resources to benefit poor people (Commonwealth Debt Initiative).
