Time for debt relief

Bill Clinton went to Africa last month expecting to talk about the benefits of increased trade. He found leaders who wanted to talk about the urgent need for debt relief, and no wonder. For many of the poorest nations of Africa and Latin America, nothing matters more. Many are struggling under a burden of debt so crushing that the aid and trade income they receive simply gets recycled back north in the form of interest payments. Meanwhile little is left to pay for health, education and other programs that could begin to relieve poverty.

Two years ago, the major creditor nations, including the United States, acknowledged the foolishness of this debt service carousel. Together with the World Bank and the IMF, they shaped the first comprehensive program of debt relief for countries that were pursuing reasonable policies likely to produce economic growth. Their plan was hailed as a major breakthrough for developing nations.

In practice, the results have been modest. Only six countries have been approved for debt relief, and only three will actually receive any assistance by the end of this year. Many more countries that badly need help will not be eligible, under the plan's criteria, for years to come.

These criteria include a record of six unbroken years of good economic performance. The impulse behind this condition is right; there is no point in extending aid to regimes that will squander it. But inflexibly making every country wait so long risks missing an opportunity to help countries that really want to help themselves. Many governments dedicated to poverty reduction and economic growth simply will not survive six years without debt relief.

President Clinton says he promised President Nelson Mandela and other African leaders to "see what I could do to make sure that we give as much as we possibly can" and "to stay on top of this" once he returned to Washington. This week, with the world's finance ministers in Washington for the annual meetings of the World Bank and the IMF, would be a good time to begin redeeming that promise.

-- The Washington Post