The UK Government committed that all countries qualifying under the enhanced Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative will receive 100 per cent relief on the debts they owe to the Export Credit Guarantee Department and Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC) plc. This includes all debt, both that treated under the HIPC Initiative, known as pre-cut off date debt, and post-cut off date debt acquired up to the end of 1999.
On the 2nd December 2000, Gordon Brown went further by pledging that, for all countries still to secure debt relief because of civil wars, external conflict or the absence of a poverty reduction programme, all debt payments will be held in trust for the day they can be returned to fund poverty reduction. Speaking at a Jubilee 2000 rally, the Chancellor said that “because poverty is so great and the need so urgent, neither you nor I want the richest countries to benefit any more from the debts of these poorest countries. So I can say to you – and to all the 41 HIPC countries on behalf of the British Government – I will renounce our right to receive any benefit from the historic debt owed by all the 41 most indebted countries”. The Chancellor went on to call for other countries to follow the UK’s lead.
The UK has a unilateral ban on export credits for unproductive expenditure in all "IDA only" countries - poor countries who can only borrow from the World Bank on highly concessional terms, which includes all HIPCs. This policy means that Britain's export credits will only support productive enterprise that assists social and economic development. The OECD is currently studying the issue of export credits and economic performance and the UK hopes that other nations will follow our lead in implementing similar bans. To assist with this process, the UK hosted a conference on this issue in London in March.
In December 2000, the Department for International Development (DFID) published “Eliminating World Poverty: Making Globalisation Work for the Poor”. One of the key policy commitments in this White Paper was to “work to increase the proportion of global development assistance spent in poor countries, help to improve its effectiveness and to reduce the burdens placed on recipient countries, end UK tied aid and for multilateral untying.”