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20 May 1999
MILLENNIUM TRUST FUND FOR DEBT RELIEF
Gordon Brown Announces $2,000 Million Fund to Help the World's Poorest Countries
A $2,000 million Millennium Trust Fund to speed up the debt relief process and cut the debts of the world's poorest countries by $50 billion by the end of the year 2000 has been called for today by the Chancellor Gordon Brown and Clare Short, Secretary of State for International Development.
The aim of the Trust will be to fund over time a more ambitious programme of faster, wider and deeper debt relief which will remove a country's unsustainable debt burden and allow resources to be reallocated to programme that reduce poverty.
To support the new Trust Fund the Chancellor and Ms Short challenged the world's richest countries to increase their contributions to the HIPC Trust Fund and called on the European Commission to contribute resources from the European Development Fund (EDF).
The Chancellor said:
"We propose that the developed world should ensure that the Trust Fund has $2,000 million to meet the costs of an enhanced scheme. This is the final building block in our proposals, which will go the G7 meetings next month, to finance debt write-off by $50 billion by the end of the year 2000.
"We are convinced that resources from the EDF could make a major contribution to debt relief. They could be used to unshackle the poorest countries from their unsustainable debt burdens and allow those countries to tackle the greatest problem of our generation - the lack of primary education and healthcare for the poorest and most deprived. To provide the key that will unlock the door to chronic poverty"
NOTES TO EDITORS
1. The announcement today builds on the four point plan announced by the Chancellor and Clare Short on 3 March. The plan was to:
- cut the debt of the world's poorest countries by $50 billion;
- boost the aid from developed countries to poor countries to $60 billion to help in social, health and education programmes to reduce poverty;
- sell $1-2 billion of IMF gold to fund enhanced debt relief; and
- give $1 billion - a challenge to non-governmental organisations to increase their aid by the end of the year 2000.