HIPC debt relief, the debt service burden and poverty reduction: with a special reference to Uganda’s experience

Documentos CIDOB Desarrollo y Cooperación, n.º 2

This document analyses the theories supporting the structure of the HIPC (Highly-Indebted Poor Countries) Initiative and its relationship with the application of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), with the aim of examining the appropriateness of this link and its possible effects on poverty reduction. It focuses especially on an examination of studies on aid conditionality and ownership. As an illustration of the results of the HIPC Initiative, the study evaluates the case of Uganda, which was the first country to fulfil the conditions for receiving debt-reduction aid, becoming a valuable experience.
The article concludes that the HIPC Initiative is an important step in the right direction to fostering sustainable growth in low-income countries and to integrating debt relief into a global poverty-reduction strategy, but it emphasises that this is only one step. Simultaneously fulfilling the multiple objectives of the Initiative, such as achieving growth, poverty reduction and debt sustainability requires actions that lie beyond its scope and surpass its means.

Author: Harpa Elín Haraldsdóttir (Technical Advisor to the Iceland International Development Agency (ICEIDA) in Nicaragua)

ISSN: 1886-6999 (print edition)
ISSN: 1887-1798 (online edition)

74 pp.